HARRISBURG -- A statewide grand jury has invited the state House majority leader, the man he displaced in that job and the state secretary of revenue to appear before the panel, a move that has presaged charges against others who received such letters in an ongoing corruption probe.

The letters went to State Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, the House majority leader; State Rep. H. William DeWeese, D-Greene, who served as majority leader until Mr. Eachus succeeded him in a caucus shakeup; and Revenue Secretary Stephen Stetler, a former eight-term Democratic House member from York.

Such letters of invitation, unlike subpoenas, which are used to compel a grand jury appearance by witnesses, have been sent in the past to individuals thought to be targets of the jury. Such letters were sent to earlier defendants in the sprawling investigation that came to be known as Bonusgate.

Gov. Ed Rendell yesterday confirmed the letter to Mr. Stetler, who informed the governor's staff last week. The letters to Mr. Eachus and Mr. DeWeese were confirmed by sources connected to the probe but who spoke on condition of anonymity because grand jury proceedings are secret. Press secretaries for Mr. Stetler and Mr. Eachus declined comment.

Walter Cohen, a former acting state attorney general who represents Mr. DeWeese, last night issued a statement:

"Bill DeWeese as House majority leader cooperated with the attorney general's investigation even before it went into the grand jury and he has and will continue to cooperate, but I cannot comment on any specific question related to grand jury procedures because of the secrecy restrictions."

Word of the letters surfaced one day before testimony was to begin in the first of the criminal trials growing out of the investigation by Attorney General Tom Corbett.

Former State Rep. Sean Ramaley, D-Beaver, faces charges he received a state salary while running for that post in 2004. He was among 12 Democrats charged last year as an outgrowth of a three-year inquiry into allegations that state employee were paid fraudulent bonuses for working on party election campaigns.

Last month, former speaker of the House John Perzel, R-Philadelphia, and seven others were charged with misapplying more than $10 million in state contracts to build election databases and for deploying state employees to work campaigns while on the commonwealth payroll.

Should either Mr. Eachus or Mr. DeWeese face charges, House caucus rules require them to step down from leadership posts, setting the stage for a potential power struggle within the caucus and imperiling legislative business at a time the House is still attempting to finish the state's budget.

What remained unclear yesterday was whether the grand jury would issue a final report recommending reforms in the legislative system, opening the possibility that Mr. DeWeese's invitation to appear could be to provide details on the caucus operations and potential changes.

In a news conference here yesterday, Mr. Rendell said Mr. Stetler "is doing a great job" and would voluntarily testify before the grand jury.

"My understanding is that he is going to testify," Mr. Rendell said. "He has my full confidence. If something happens we will deal with that at the appropriate time."

Mr. Rendell learned of the letter after Mr. Stetler informed Steve Crawford, the governor's chief-of-staff.

Mr. Stetler could not be reached yesterday. He was appointed to the Rendell cabinet in November 2008.

Mr. Stetler, of York County, served eight terms in the Legislature before deciding not to seek reelection in 2006 in the wake of a voter backlash over a legislative pay raise. While in the House, he served as chairman of the House Democratic Campaign Committee, and it was in that role that he apparently attracted attention from prosecutors investigating allegations that state employees were paid fraudulent bonuses as a reward for working in legislative election campaigns.

In June, the Post-Gazette reported that a onetime top Democratic campaign aide testified before the Bonusgate grand jury that Mr. Stetler rejected a plan that would have shifted political opposition research from state employees to private firms. At the time, the grand jury was looking into the use of state employees and resources for political campaign purposes and a dozen individuals had already been charged.

Dan Wiedemer, former director of the House Democratic Campaign Committee during Mr. Stetler's tenure, told the grand jury his plan "was more or less shot down."

A partial transcript, obtained by the Post-Gazette last summer, put Mr. Wiedemer's testimony on July 29, 2008 -- two weeks after the grand jury issued a presentment accusing a dozen people, including former Minority Whip Mike Veon, D- Beaver, with multiple counts of fraud for using state employees and state tax money to finance campaigns.

At the time, sources close to the investigation said Mr. Stetler was receiving a closer look in connection with the probe.

Mr. Wiedemer told prosecutors that he priced out the cost of hiring private consultants for opposition research because he was worried about inconsistent results from state employees.

"The way it should have been done and the way, by the time '05, '06 rolled around, we hoped it would be done is that you hire an outside firm. You pay them $2,500, maybe $5,000 a race. They send their folks out to courthouses. They pore through the records and they give you back a nice professional book describing everything about that person's background, about your own candidate's background," Mr. Wiedemer testified.

A prosecutor then asked him, "Were you shot down in a way that Stetler said, 'well, look we can't afford this and we're not going to be able to do it or in a way that it was relayed that we can't afford this and so we're going to have our folks do this; we're going to have our employees of the taxpayers do this?'"

Mr. Wiedemer responded "Right. It was sort of getting back to what I mentioned earlier: Why in the world would we pay somebody $5,000 per campaign when we have a perfectly good system in place already."

Several of Mr. Stetler's legislative aides received hefty bonuses in 2005-2006, his last term in office, and were heavily involved in legislative election campaigns at the time, according to campaign expenditure records.

A 2005 memorandum to fellow Democratic lawmakers from Mr. Stetler also surfaced. In that memo he urged members to "encourage your staff to volunteer their time and talents over the next 11 weeks to the House Democratic Campaign Committee. ... The HDCC will be contacting your staff regarding this matter and I ask that you allow them every chance to participate."

A trail of e-mail messages shows 2005 wasn't the first time Mr. Stetler had been directing staffers' campaign efforts. In a 2004 e-mail message, Paul Martz, who was being paid as a legislative aide, suggests to Mr. Wiedemer that, "Stetler maybe send the Westmoreland delegation, sans Tangretti, an e-mail telling them that I have been assigned to work with them through the election." At the time, Mr. Martz was a state employee already assigned to work for the re-election campaign of Westmoreland Democrat Thomas Tangretti.

In another string of messages in 2004 Mr. Stetler and six others -- some on state payroll and others on the campaign committee staff -- discuss plans to convene a meeting during the work day to discuss research being conducted on candidates challenging Democratic incumbents. Four months later, in another message sent to state-provided e-mail accounts, Mr. Stetler thanked 14 legislative staffers for "doing opposition research" and invited them to a party at a Harrisburg bar.

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