Commonwealth Foundation, today, itemized the recent charges, convictions and investigations of current and recent Pennsylvania state legislators and boldly claimed the crime rate in the state Capitol to be higher than our worst cities.
The CF’s Nathan Benefield pointed out that State Rep. Mike Veon, who had served as PA House Democrat Whip, has been sentenced to 6 to 14 years for his role in Bonusgate while trials are pending against former speakers of the house Bill DeWeese and John Perzel as well as former representatives Brett Feese and Steve Stetler. Note that Perzel and Feese are Republicans while DeWeese and Stetler are Democrats.
Benefield also points out that on the Senate side former powerbroker Vince Fumo has been convicted, Sen. Jane Orie has been indicted, and the feds have raided the homes and offices of Democratic Leader Bob Mellow and Sen. Ray Musto. Here, Ms. Orie is the lone Republican and I’ll grant you that my suspicion is that when all is said and done the scandal will be the behavior of the prosecutor, who happens to belong to a powerful Democrat family, rather than that of the Senator.
Still it is the reasonable person that will think that the Pennsylvania is run by thieves and this would of course explain our chronic budget crisis and bloated pension plans .
Don’t forget that those in trouble aren’t backbenchers felt by their colleagues to be dirty, but men whom their peers elected to led them i.e. two speakers of the house, a Democrat house whip and a Democrat senate leader.
Yes, Pennsylvania, you are run by thieves.
One solution Commonwealth Foundation broached to bring a level of quasi-honesty to Harrisburg is term limits. To that I say dead on.
I suggest the Commonwealth Agency or perhaps another similar unit start, finance and engage a private investigating bureau to keep an eye on these crooks. Let’s send them to jail. Meanwhile, let’s work hard for term limits.