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Pa. Attorney General Targets Democrats
Submitted by Ben Waxman on Thu, 08/30/2007 - 11:08am.
Last week, I predicted that Republicans in Harrisburg would soon be attacking Democrats to try to undermine our slim majority in the Pa. House. Well, it happened much quicker than I expected. Attorney General Tom Corbett, who is a Republican, raided the Democratic Office of Legislative Research as part of an ongoing investigation into staff bonuses.
The raid has set up a potential constitutional showdown between the office of Attorney General Tom Corbett, a Republican, and legislative leaders over whether a search of the Capitol office violated the state constitution's separation of powers. The issues largely mirror the ones raised on the federal level after FBI agents last year searched the office of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., as part of an ongoing bribery investigation.
The state attorney general is also investigating Mr. Veon's involvement in a nonprofit organization he created in his home district and which received thousands of dollars in state funds.
Mr. Veon could not be reached for comment last night. Robert A. Graci, lawyer for the House Democratic caucus, did not return telephone calls.
Kevin Harley, a spokesman for the attorney general, said he could not comment on the search but confirmed that the office is actively investigating the Democratic research department.
I don't know if anything illegal occurred with Veon or the staff bonuses. Republicans are alleging that state funds were given as bonuses to staff people who did volunteer work on political campaigns. If this is true, it's clearly wrong and should not have happened. However, it's important to keep Tom Corbett's raid in context. He is targeting Democrats because he wants to undermine the majority in the state house.
It's pretty ironic that Corbett is claiming Democrats abused public dollars for political purposes, since that is exactly what he is doing with this raid. Corbett wants to run for governor in 2010 and he thinks he can score some cheap political points by going after Democrats. That might help him win the Republican primary, but I suspect that most Pennsylvanians would prefer their AG to be enforcing environmental standards, gun laws, and other things that actually directly impact people's lives. This raid is nothing more than a political stunt designed to embarrass Democrats.
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Corruption in Harrisburg
I want to be clear that I think corruption is a major problem in Harrisburg. But it's important to remember that, for an incredibly long time, the Republicans were mostly in control. Rendell has been dealing with an entirely Republican legislature for his governorship. Before that, Tom Ridge presided over complete one party control. Harrisburg is corrupt because it has been run by Republicans.
If the Democrats in the House did anything against the law, they should absolutely be punished. However, I can't figure out why the Attorney General of Pennsylvania is so excited to be investigating Democrats (and only Democrats), who have been trapped in the minority for 12 years.
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Big Picture
With Republicans in control of the federal & state governments the past 20 years, it has become common for Republicans to illegally & unethically use police powers & the judiciary to achieve favorable election results. Although the audacity of the Republicans in wresting Florida to take the 2000 presidency opened many Democrats' eyes, the majority of Democratic office holders can not see the forest from the trees & are unaware how widespread illegal Republican attempts to change election outcomes have become. I strongly suspect the investigation of Mayor Street's office was an attempt to change Pa's outcome, examination of possible wrongdoing by NJ Senator Menendez right before his run was another.
My observation is that such Republican behavior arises from a strong authoritarian strain within the Republican psyche that villifies those with opposing opinions & justifies all efforts to marginalize them. You see it in the right, including President Bush, implying that all that don't support the Iraqi misadventure are unpatriotic & undermining America.