Debate revived over staffers as political workers
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HARRISBURG -- As a statewide grand jury explores allegations that a group of key House aides tied state payroll bonuses to campaign work, debate is resuming about whether legislative staffers should be restricted from political activities.
"When you have elections and people have to raise money for elections, you're going to have people participating who are expecting something. That's democracy humming in the background, like I-95," said William Chadwick, a former prosecutor brought in to examine operation of the House Democratic caucus early this year.
Mr. Chadwick conducted an internal probe into how $1.9 million in payroll bonuses for staff members might connect to their political work. It is illegal to finance political campaigns with state money.
Some pundits and observers say legislative staff should be prohibited from running fund-raisers, collecting political contributions and serving in such positions as campaign manager or campaign treasurer.
Others, including staffers involved in campaigns, say those kinds of restrictions would violate workers' rights and make it harder for candidates to connect with voters.
Their comments come amid increasing evidence that Pennsylvania House Democrats used taxpayer-funded bonuses to compensate employees for campaign work.
"Given what has happened, I would think the Legislature would want to make a statement and get into a different, more ethical situation," said Joseph DiSarro, chairman of the political science department at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pa. "If you have staff people involved in direct political activities, what are they going to be doing next? What's after that? Maybe they'll be running campaigns right out of the Capitol."
Election law already prohibits campaigning on state equipment, in state buildings or by state employees while on the clock. Observers like Dr. DiSarro say that's not enough.
Even those who caution against restricting employees' right to political expression say change is needed.
"You have a major problem in Pennsylvania," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Government Studies in Los Angeles. "What's happened is an abuse of the public trust and it's a waste of taxpayers' money."
What emerged in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette examination of records this year is evidence of a political support system intended to keep incumbents in office.
Staffers from both chambers and both caucuses regularly perform campaign duties. They work phone banks, make yard signs, distribute campaign literature, film television commercials, arrange fund-raisers, stuff envelopes and much more, with taxpayers sometimes picking up portions of the cost.
In some instances during the last election cycle, workers presumably assigned to legislative duties instead were dispatched to handle campaign chores, sometimes for weeks on end.
Sometimes employees left the state payroll to focus exclusively on campaign work while taxpayers indirectly subsidized the work by picking up the cost of medical insurance for those employees. In the case of House Republican staffers, campaign committees generally reimbursed the state for benefits while employees went off payroll to work on elections.
Dozens of state employees are available at election time to shift from state work to political duties, ranging from a pool of labor in the Democratic Office of Legislative Research to Republican district directors sprinkled across the state.
The conflation of legislative and political work and the assemblage of available political workers is not necessarily illegal in all cases. But it can effectively cause taxpayers to underwrite campaigns of political incumbents.
"Using staff in a campaign is unfair to the opponent, who is already working against the tide," Dr. DiSarro said. "It's unethical, it's unfair and it distorts the whole process. The role of a staff was never meant to be the personal campaign committee of the officeholder."
Staffers' participation in campaigns should be strictly limited, he said.
Al Bowman, who is a legislative policy analyst and spokesman for the House Republican Campaign Committee, said that would be a mistake.
"Why would you want to take folks that work in state government and completely divorce them from the process by which they're held accountable?" he asked.
Dr. DiSarro can see that point.
"Staffers have a vested interest and they know the candidate inside and out," he said. "They have a great deal of knowledge, expertise and energy, and they're able to project an image for the candidate better than somebody who is a volunteer or a professional campaign consultant.
"But I do not believe legislative staff should be involved in campaign activities, period. It's clear to me that if we want effective government, this [ban on politicking by aides] is something that's long past due."
Mr. Stern said that would be an unusual move and a draconian one that might raise First Amendment issues for staffers who want to express political views by working on campaigns.
Still, he said, Pennsylvania lawmakers need to do something to restore faith in the political process.
After being summoned to Harrisburg by House Democratic Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Waynesburg, Mr. Chadwick said he tried to examine the internal practices in place for employee political activities. He found none.
"You're in a place where everybody's up for re-election every two years. It's a very risky dynamic," Mr. Chadwick said.
In May, with little fanfare, the House Democratic caucus introduced an internal compliance program that more clearly defines what staff members may and may not do for political reasons. The House computer system, on which top aides are suspected of authoring a string of politically related e-mails, now has a warning screen when users log on, advising them it's for official state business only.
But where some critics advocate a state equivalent of the federal Hatch Act, which bans political activity by federal employees of the executive branch, others, such as Mr. Chadwick, are doubtful.
"You don't need a Hatch Act. You're in a regulated workplace. Any regulated workplace has a compliance program," Mr. Chadwick said.
Sitting lawmakers are unlikely to want to change a system built to keep them in office, but this year's bonus controversy just might provide the impetus for Pennsylvania to lead the way.
"The cases we're talking about are really egregious in the sense that we're looking at substantial amounts of money pumped into the hands of individuals clearly doing electoral activities," said Christopher P. Borick, professor of political science at Muhlenberg College in Allentown.
Insiders like Mr. Bowman say it would be more effective to enforce existing laws than to create new ones.
"Do you know how thick the list of campaign finance laws already is? It's thick," he said. "Enforcement is the biggest part of it and that's where we need to see the change."
Transparency would help, too, Dr. Borick said.
The bonus scandal might never have erupted if legislative leaders who distributed the payments knew the public would find out about them, he said.
Bonuses given to House Democratic staffers were accompanied by a letter from Mr. DeWeese, telling them not to discuss the bonuses with anyone, including the lawmakers who directly supervised them. Later, Mr. DeWeese refused to disclose the amounts of the bonuses and the names of recipients, but he eventually revealed them.
His office has yet to produce time records supporting his contention that all campaign work by staffers was done on vacation, personal or compensatory time.
"Everything that's taken place over the last three years -- from the [2005] legislative pay raises to the bonuses -- comes from secrecy over the use of funding at lawmakers' discretion. That's what allowed these things to happen," Dr. Borick said.
Harrisburg needs widespread institutional reform, he said.
"Changing the structure, changing the rules and disclosing more are so important. Harrisburg has to set a new tone," he said. "Even the best states haven't completely gotten rid of abusive behavior by elected officials, but they limit the opportunities for it to happen and they increase the likelihood that, if it does, it will be picked up more quickly."
First Published December 18, 2007 12:00 am
