Rendell: Government got ‘black eye’
HARRISBURG – When Gov. Ed Rendell addressed the sudden pay raise repeal last week, he said state government’s got a “black eye” and needs reform. “We need to take a hard look at how we do business in Pennsylvania,” he said. “We have to change the way we do things.”
Rendell mentioned as possibilities adhering to legislative rules more closely, reducing the size of the Legislature, and setting up a citizens’ commission to take charge of redistricting so elections are more competitive.
Rendell may be staking a front and center seat in what could become a year of “good government” reform, given heightened public concern about the integrity of state government.
But public advocates for good government say the process is flawed, right up to the way the repeal bill itself was passed. While lawmakers and the governor may be basking in hope that a repeal of the pay raise will soon bring them back to public favor, some who have watched closely say public officials have not learned the true lesson of the ordeal.
“They did it wrong the first time because they used a lousy process. And they did it wrong the second time because they used a lousy process,” said Tim Potts of Democracy Rising PA. “How many times do they have to get it wrong?”
To those who simply want to see top government officials stripped of their double-digit pay hikes, the argument may seem convoluted. But Potts and other advocates say they don’t like the way the repeal bill passed without public hearings, in a matter of a few hours after the text became available, and tacked on as an amendment to an energy assistance bill that had nothing to do with the pay raise. Similar to the 2 a.m. pay raise, they say.
They’re also disturbed that the still unresolved repeal bill has an element to it that may be unconstitutional; that is, the docking of judges’ pay. And they say if the Legislature had slowed down and considered the issue more closely, they might have found their way more easily out of the woods.
Steve Miskin, spokesman for House Republican Leader Sam Smith, of Jefferson County, said the process was sound.
“If the General Assembly were to do a resolution saying the sky is blue, these people would say there’s a cloud on the right and maybe we should look at the process,” he said.
Drew Crompton, counsel for Republican Sen. Robert Jubelirer, said everyone, including the press, began to know about the repeal bill three days before it passed, and that a pay raise repeal and energy assistance were germane in that both had to do with changes to the fiscal code.
In response to Rendell’s good government pronouncements, Crompton said: “It’s part of an election process. Certainly, it’s to make him look like he can clean us up.”
But Senate Republicans have their own good government reforms, he said, including a spending cap on state budgets.
“He won’t consider that a good government reform, but we think it is,” he said.
House Democratic Whip Mike Veon, of Beaver County, was also cautious about talk of reform. He said he knew little of the governor’s plans. Veon was one of only two votes against the repeal (the other being House Democratic Leader H. William DeWeese of Waynesburg).
“I don’t think you should just make broad statements,” he said. “Reform – that phrase is thrown around loosely.”
Some advocates say they do see a window of opportunity to press some of the open government changes they’ve been working on for years, such as a lobbyist disclosure law, an open records law for the Legislature and an end to lame duck sessions which allow lawmakers to pass dozens of bills in the final days before their term ends.
But Gene Stilp, a citizen activist who’s suing state officials over the pay raise, said there’s one thing more immediate he would like to see done. He’d like all lawmakers who’ve been taking a midterm pay hike in the form of unvouchered expenses to return the money back to the state Treasury. That could be as little as $4,000 to more than $12,000 for the top leaders.
“We didn’t expect this much fresh air in the halls of the Legislature when we opened the windows,” Stilp said.
Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or ahawkes@calkins-media.com