All Posts Tagged With: "Bonusgate"

First dozen crooks looks like only beginning of “Bonusgate”

Twelve current and former PENNSYLVANIA lawmakers and legislative aides were indicted July 10 for allegedly pressing state employees into working political campaigns on state time and then rewarding them with millions of dollars in bonuses from state coffers, a scandal that has been dubbed “Bonusgate.”

Among those charged in the grand jury investigation by state Attorney General Tom Corbett were former House Minority Whip Michael Veon, credited with engineering the Democrats’ recapture of the chamber in 2006; current state Rep. Sean M. Ramaley (D); Jeff Foreman, Veon’s former chief of staff; and Michael Manzo, chief of staff to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D) until last year.

Corbett emphasized that the charges he announced were only the “initial” ones. “Let me make this perfectly clear: this is not the conclusion,” he said. “This is an ongoing investigation.”

The Democrats’ and Republicans’ practice of dolling out year-end bonuses had been a longstanding but secret one in Harrisburg until the Patriot-News made it public knowledge in early 2007. Party leaders in the House and Senate initially refused to release details about

the bonuses. But it eventually came out that at the end of 2006, House Democrats handed out nearly $1.9 million in bonuses to 717 aides, in large part for thwarting third-party candidate Ralph Nader’s presidential challenge to John Kerry in the state; House Republicans awarded $270,000 in bonuses to 45 aides; Senate Republicans gave $180,000 to 16 staffers; and Senate Democrats gave $38,000 to a dozen staffers.

Corbett’s investigation focused from the start on House Democrats, ostensibly because of the volume of their bonuses. But Brett Cott, Veon’s former administrative director who was also charged by Corbett, seemed to think the course of the prosecution was an outgrowth of Harrisburg’s political culture, Corbett being a Republican. “There may be a culture here. There may be campaigning going on. Whatever. But for a systematic, focused effort to look at just one party, one house, one chamber - it’s very disappointing,” he said.

Cott evidently sees himself as a victim of that culture, something like the unfortunate Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, who ends up taking a sword because of the Capulets’ and Montagues’ feuding. When asked last October about the apparent blurring of the line between government and politics, he said: “Look, a pox on everybody’s house. A pox on everything that’s going on here.” (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER)