Outrageous
Defense of lawmakers an offense to us After the “mad as hell” grand jury that investigated the Bonusgate scandal called the state Legislature “broken” and “utterly incapable of reforming itself,” one eastern Pennsylvania state senator took to this page on Sunday to say the “conclusions and the recommendations of the report are, in many respects, dead wrong.”
In a column on Sunday, state Sen. Daylin Leach defended the “99 percent of lawmakers not accused of a crime.”
“The overwhelming majority of Pennsylvania’s legislators, on both sides of the aisle, are extremely smart, hard-working, completely honest people who are doing their level best to make Pennsylvania a better place. The notion that legislators are corrupt in any way is (with a few rare exceptions) plain false. And thus any “reforms” based on this notion are ill-grounded,” he wrote.
He claimed the state legislature was an easy target for criticism not because of its bloated inefficiency and inherent corruption, but because of generalizations based on a few “bad apples” and the fact that they can’t please every voter with every policy.
He also accuses the grand jury of making “sloppy factual assertion(s)” like saying the “overwhelming majority” legislators care more about serving themselves than serving their constituents. In response to the report’s claims that being a legislator isn’t a full-time job, Leach wrote “most legislators spend 70-80 hours per week, every week at their jobs and still struggle to keep up.”
Which brings us to the most glaring issue with Leach’s defense of Harrisburg: he can’t offer any results for those “70-80 hours per week” that legislators are clocking. His letter would be a lot more convincing if he could point to some accomplishments, but he didn’t. The legislature hasn’t reduced property taxes or cut income taxes or expanded services. The only thing it has done – and done consistently – is be late in passing a budget, which some consider to be the most important job of the state legislature.
Leach saved the best of his ire for this issue and compares the grand jury’s recommendation to withhold legislators’ pay until the budget is passed to bribery. Just to make sure it’s clear he isn’t for the recommendation, he called it “the most nonsensical and plain awful idea of all.”
What Leach doesn’t do, however, is address the simple fact that the legislature’s plain awful track record on the budget can’t continue. We can’t imagine we’d keep our jobs for very long if we were consistently months late in getting your paper to your doorstep. While the grand jury’s recommendation may not be the total answer, that Leach didn’t address the central need to fix the budget process is clear he is more interested in saving face rather than finding answers.
And that gets to our main issue with Leach’s letter: no reasonable legislator – or voter – can look at Harrisburg and pretend everything is OK, which is exactly what Leach is positing. There are changes that need made and his attempt to defend his and his colleagues’ professional honor isn’t getting us any closer.
What infuriated the grand jury – and us – is that numerous witnesses said that “no one’s guilty because everybody does it.” If that line of defense sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Supporters of state Rep. Bill DeWeese, D-Waynesburg, offered up that weak defense in the run up to the May primary.
You can argue over which of the grand jury’s recommendations are feasible or practical but to say nothing is wrong is crazy. We agree with the grand jury, which believes “beyond any doubt that the General Assembly, if left to its own devices, is utterly incapable of reforming itself.”
His other central thrust, that most legislators aren’t corrupt, is an exercise in extremely lowered expectations that would make even the Pittsburgh Pirates blush. It’s not an accomplishment that most people who have offices in the Capitol aren’t crooked. If that’s what he wants to brag about, then maybe the bar for Harrisburg is even lower than we thought.