A spat over records between Councilman Len Bodack and his challenger in the Democratic primary, Patrick Dowd, continued today with the contender accusing the incumbent of hiding details of his spending and use of staff time.

The councilman, in turn, said the details are on the way and that his rival is just trying to manufacture an issue.

Mr. Dowd wrote to Mr. Bodack on April 23, requesting records of all discretionary spending, staffing records, and consulting contracts and receipts by that council office since 2003. Mr. Dowd also raised questions about the fact that Mr. Bodack's district office and campaign office are in the same building.

Mr. Bodack shot back that his staff was beyond reproach, and that the records would be forthcoming.

Late yesterday, Mr. Dowd's campaign answered that the councilman had missed a statutory five-business-day deadline to provide records requested under the state right-to-know law.

"First, we have multiple refusals from the Councilman to publicly discuss his record in the context of this campaign, and now he audaciously disregards state law and refuses to let the citizens of Pittsburgh know how he is spending their tax dollars? What are you hiding, Councilman?" Mr. Dowd wrote in a press release.

Mr. Bodack said today that the City Clerk's Office has been instructed to provide the records to Mr. Dowd expeditiously. Until that time, he didn't want to talk about whatever might be in them.

The councilman did immediately address one issue: The co-location of the district and campaign offices. "They are on two different floors. There are two different entrances," he said. "There's a locked interior door between them."

Both offices are in a Lawrenceville building owned by the councilman's father, the former state senator of the same name. "The city doesn't pay any rent. It never has," he said. The $9,558 in reimbursements the city has made to him for district office expenses since 2004 are for the utilities and phone service, he said.

Yesterday, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's Homewood Branch told Early Returns that a controversial debate between some of the eight Democratic primary candidates for Pittsburgh Councilwoman Twanda Carlisle's seat was cancelled. Turns out it's not cancelled. It will be held at 6 p.m. May 8 and will be moderated by the inimitable Louis "Hop" Kendrick, so it should be lively. The debate was criticized by one candidate, Judith Ginyard, who said a flyer advertising it suggested that the event would be biased against some contestants, presumably including Ms. Ginyard.

Pittsburgh Councilman William Peduto, who abandoned his mayoral campaign and is instead running some kind of think tank, is trying to turn tomorrow's council meeting into a test of his advocacy powers. The non-campaign called Peduto for Pittsburgh sent out an e-mail today, purportedly to 7,000 people, urging them to lobby for a change in city street-paving policy by e-mailing their council person or the mayor. The call to arms:

"On Wednesday City Council will be voting to change the way streets are selected for resurfacing. In the 1990s, Pittsburgh spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to conduct an engineering study of our streets. Several factors -- including composition, type of surface, amount of traffic, speed limit -- were analyzed, and a rating system, along with the needed software system, was created so that politics would be taken out of the process. Unfortunately, that system has been scrapped, and instead we are left with politicians deciding whose street gets paved and whose street does not get paved. Although this is a small part of a much larger problem, it is symbolic of the politics as usual that guides city hall.

"If you are tired of the old way of doing things in Pittsburgh, then do something about it TODAY!

"Email City Council and the Mayor, and tell them you demand that we reinstall the Paving Management System. Let them know that you support a government that is fair, equal, and transparent. Tell them that you will be watching on Wednesday and that you expect them to support legislation to reinstall this system."

Here's the P-G's write-up of the Peduto paving plan.

Tomorrow could be an interesting test of the councilman's ability, post-mayoral meltdown, to inspire his troops -- and a test of whether other council members particularly care if their e-mail bins are full of Peduto-inspired messages.

"Neanderthal?"

Ill-informed?

Just think of what the Republicans must be saying.

It isn't often that two Democratic senators from the Pittsburgh area criticize Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell but he faced friendly fire from two directions today.

Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, joined death-penalty opponents, including church groups and the the American Civil Liberties Union, called for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in Pennsylvania until a study is done to see if it's being imposed fairly and impartially.

Mr. Ferlo said that too often a person convicted of killing someone doesn't get adequate legal counsel, is poor or is from a racial minority, so, he argued, a moratorium is needed so no more people will be unjustly put to death.

But Mr. Rendell said he didn't see a need for a legislated moratorium. Mr. Rendell, who was Philadelphia district attorney in the 1970s and early 80s, claimed the state already has "a de facto moratorium," meaning no one has been executed for years, as long as they are still appealing their conviction. The only reason for an execution is if a person stops the appeals and agrees to be put to death, he said. The last execution in Pennsylvania was in 1999.

Asked about the governor's reaction, Mr. Ferlo said at a press conference, "I am very disappointed in the Neanderthal view of the governor."

Such criticism could make it harder to get more state grants for Pittsburgh. So 10 minutes later, perhaps realizing what he had said, Mr. Ferlo added, "The governor has been a progressive voice on many issues, and we are asking him to look into his heart and revisit this (moratorium) issue."

Then there was Sen. Sean Logan, D-Monroeville. He and Mr. Rendell are at odds over a potential free-tuition program for Pennsylvania students to attend the 14 State System of Higher Education colleges.

Mr. Rendell insists there is budget "surplus" at PHEAA, the much-criticized agency that makes loans and grants to college students, which has been attacked recently for lavish trips made by its officials.

Mr. Rendell wants to use this "surplus" to make free tuition available to state students, according to KDKA television. The governor believes there is a $25 million surplus at PHEAA, according to the KDKA report, but Mr. Rendell refused to confirm that number to the Post-Gazette today.

Mr. Logan said today, "The governor is incorrect on the numbers he's giving to the media, citing a surplus at PHEAA."

Mr. Logan, the vice chairman of PHEAA's board, claimed there is no surplus.

"PHEAA doesn't have an outrageously large surplus as the governor has suggested," Mr. Logan said. "The money is not just sitting there."

He said PHEAA keeps some funds in reserve, as required to maintain its bond rating, and because it must pay back loans of students and parents who default on them, but he insisted there is no big "surplus" of money waiting to be used.

Mr. Logan did admits that "talks are in their infancy" about a possible tuition program for students at some state-owned colleges, but wouldn't say where that money would come from.

Mary Beth Buchanan puts in an appearance in the New York Times today, defending her record against suggestions of politicization in the context of the controversial firings of some of her colleagues.

The Times notes the criticisms leveled by Thomas Farrell, a former federal prosecutor, who has charged that Ms. Buchanan has shown a partisan slant in the exercise of her prosecutorial discretion. It's part of a national look by the Times' Eric Lipton at the questions on the track record of the Bush Justice Department's local prosecutors. The Post-Gazette's Paula Reed Ward took a Buchanan-specific look at some of the same issues a few weeks ago.

From the Times:

"Her office spent more than two years looking into whether former Mayor Tom Murphy of Pittsburgh, offered firefighters a favorable labor contract in exchange for their endorsement. After Mr. Murphy left office, Ms. Buchanan announced she would not indict him.

"She did not pursue charges against a Republican state legislator, Jeffrey E. Habay, or former Senator Rick Santorum, when they were accused of wrongdoing, Mr. Farrell said.

"Ms. Buchanan said the questions about Mr. Santorum -- which related to where he claimed residency -- have been referred to officials in Washington. More broadly, she said, Democrats outnumber Republicans by such a heavy margin in Pittsburgh it is only natural that more Democrats are the subject of investigations. What matters, she said, is that each case is handled fairly.

"Whenever wrongdoing is brought to my attention, it's my job to investigate it and where appropriate, I will bring charges," she said.

Speaking of the Justice Department, Pete DeCoursey has an interesting tick-tock piece on how the language that allowed the firings of the U.S. attorneys were slipped into the Patriot Act by a tame Justice Department official on detached service to Sen. Arlen Specter's Judiciary Committee.

"So it is fascinating to note the White House would not have been able to appoint to essentially unlimited terms new U.S. Attorneys to replace the ones it fired, without the change in the Patriot Act [Brett] Tolman shepherded through the Senate," Mr. DeCoursey writes.

"As Specter himself explained on Feb. 6 to the Judiciary Committee: 'Prior to the Patriot Act" reauthorization in 2006, "U.S. Attorneys were replaced by the attorney general for 120 days, and then appointments by the court or the first assistant succeeded to the position of U.S. Attorney. And the Patriot Act [reauthorization in 2006] gave broader powers to the attorney general to appoint replacement U.S. Attorneys.' And it allowed those replacements to stay in office essentially perpetually, regardless of Senate action.

"Specter had to explain his role in the Patriot Act and that provision's becoming law after Sen. Charles Schumer, R-N.Y., criticized him.''

You'll need a subscription to Capitolwire to read the whole thing.

Sen. Bob Casey, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is calling on President Bush to tighten economic sanctions against the Sudan because of ongoing violence in the country's Darfur region.

"Mr. President, the situation in Darfur is critical," reads a letter that Mr. Casey signed along with Democrats Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Carl Levin of Michigan, and Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. "Over 200,000 are dead and 2.5 million displaced while the threat of a regional war looms large. We cannot take a wait and see approach any longer and must do everything we can to avert an even larger humanitarian catastrophe and end this genocide."

Some of the sanctions proposed include: "blocking any of [Sudan's] dollar transactions within the US financial system, including by adding companies owned or controlled by the Sudanese Government to the Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Nationals."