DeWeese points out GOP duplicity in committee vote
HARRISBURG — State Rep. Bill DeWeese, D-Waynesburg, said Republican party-line opposition to an amendment he offered during a House Labor and Industry Committee meeting flies in the face of the admonishments in favor of competitive bidding he endured while testifying before a grand jury in 2009.
DeWeese offered an amendment to Senate Bill 1310 that would have required competition for those seeking to underwrite a $4.2 billion state bond — the largest of its type ever issued in the nation — to bolster Pennsylvania’s unemployment compensation insurance fund.
DeWeese said that when he voluntarily appeared before a grand jury convened by Republican Attorney General and now-Gov. Tom Corbett, prosecutors lambasted the Legislature over the need to have competitive bidding for the award of large state contracts and financial transactions.
“Since Corbett’s agents took me, as a Democratic leader, to the proverbial wood shed over this issue, I believed there would be widespread support on the Republican-controlled Labor and Industry Committee for the amendment that I offered,” DeWeese said. “However, I was shocked and saddened — as were many of my Democratic colleagues — at the GOP’s profound lack of willingness to embrace the change called for by Corbett and his prosecutors not too many moons ago.”
DeWeese said he believes competitive bidding that could lower taxpayer costs for a multibillion-dollar bond issue is a good idea for the cash-strapped state, and added that he looks forward to engaging in a debate with Republicans who feel otherwise, when the matter reaches the House floor for final consideration.
“I also sincerely hope that the governor uses the weight of his current office — and not just the weight of the grand juries he convened as attorney general — to implement the type of structural changes that he and his lieutenants deemed vitally important 24 months ago,” DeWeese said. “It is one thing to beat the verbal drum about ending a ‘pay-to-play’ culture; it is a higher and more worthy achievement to actually do something about it.”