Feb 27, 2007 1 min read

Does it surprise anyone that 32-year state Rep. Mark Cohen, a Philadelphia Democrat, cast the House Legislative Reform Commission’s only “no” vote on making all public records available electronically? Cohen, a longtime fixture on the Democrats’ leadership team, said making it easy for you to track spending would “totally change the nature of public debate about the Legislature.” He also said that such full transparency would discourage middle-class people from wanting to serve. What we suspect, though, is that Cohen doesn’t relish the idea of people easily finding out that he used your tax dollars to buy $28,200 worth of books for his personal library over the past two years. We think that’s indeed “vital information” and that “reporters can write endless stories” on this type of excess, as well they should.

Start buying your own books. You make enough money.