Nov 21, 2019 2 min read

Scranton Times-Tribune

It is the sad nature of governance in Pennsylvania that a law is necessary to preclude elected representatives and their publicly paid staffs from accepting cash from entities seeking favor with the state government.

But, since that is the case, it’s a good thing that a law to accomplish that finally appears to be on its way to passage in the House, where the State Government Committee unanimously approved it Tuesday.

Cash “gifts” to legislators, remember, touched off the series of disastrous decisions by former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane that led to her resignation and conviction. She declined to prosecute four Philadelphia-area representatives who had accepted cash from an informant in a sting operation conducted by her predecessor – setting off internecine warfare that led to leaked grand jury information and her demise. Remarkably, the illegal thing about those representatives accepting the money and some material goods is not that they accepted them, but that they did not report them according to House rules.

Those payoffs were nearly a decade ago and they were first revealed nearly five years ago, yet the Legislature is just getting around to barring all cash “gifts” to lawmakers – even though Gov. Tom Wolf barred all “gifts” of any kind to executive branch personnel immediately upon taking office in 2015.

Lawmakers should simply adopt that executive branch standard – a complete ban on “gifts” of any kind – but they can’t seem to bring themselves to do it.

While forbidding cash payments, the bill approved by the committee still would allow gifts worth up to $50 and travel or lodging, or both, worth up to $500 from any one supplicant to any legislator in a calendar year.

The House itself should amend the bill simply to ban all gifts. If it does not, the Senate should do so, which would force House members to publicly double down on allowing themselves to be greased.

This is a case in which the simplest solution is the best one. Barring all gifts leaves no room for interpretation and clearly defines the appropriate relationship between elected representatives and private interests seeking public favor.