11/18/2007

DeWeese insists he's not a target

If your current image of Bill DeWeese is of a man in a panic throwing staffers

off his sled to distract pursuing wolves, he will assure you that's far from the
truth. In fact, he insists he is not part of the problem but a voice for reform.

In an interview with the editorial board of the Observer-Reporter last week,

DeWeese said he had been cooperating with Attorney General Tom Corbett's
investigation of legislative practices "since Day One" and that as far as he
could determine, he was not a target. Additionally, he said he provided all
the documents that were used to bring charges that Rep. Frank LaGrotta
hired his sister and his niece as "ghost workers" on the legislative payroll.

LaGrotta was charged on Thursday. Two days before, DeWeese, House

majority leader, fired seven top aides to the House caucus including his own
chief of staff, Mike Manzo.

DeWeese said he could not be specific about many points because of

Corbett's ongoing investigation. It is known that the attorney general is
looking into the propriety of some $4 million in bonuses that were given to
legislative staffers in both parties at the end of last year. Critics have implied
that the bonuses rewarded work on legislative campaigns rather than
performance of state duties.

DeWeese said when he learned of the bonuses last winter, he was told the
payments to House Democratic employees totaled $400,000, a figure he
used in a television interview. The next day, he said, he learned that the
actual amount was $1.9 million. DeWeese said he called in William
McCormick, who was the inspector general for the late Gov. Robert Casey,
and Walter Cohen, a former state attorney general, to study House
operations and recommend a code of conduct.
As for the firings, he said that after "reviewing materials" late last week and
early this week, he "decided that the continued employment of certain staff
was untenable." Again, he said he was not free to specify the "materials" or
discuss what they dealt with.

It was reported last week that DeWeese's signature appeared along with
LaGrotta's on an agreement that backdated by four months the hiring of
LaGrotta's sister as an education consultant. DeWeese said an unnamed aide
signed his name and was asked to resign Tuesday.

DeWeese takes credit for the formation of the Speaker's Reform Commission
that has recommended changes in how the Legislature does business.
"There are no more midnight votes," he said. Also abandoned was the
practice of gutting bills in committee and replacing the provisions with
unrelated matters and sending them immediately to the floor for a vote.

The tumult in the Legislature began with a middle-of-the-night pay raise in

2005 that DeWeese helped engineer and that was rescinded after a taxpayer
uprising. Several longtime legislators lost seats in the next year's election.
DeWeese himself was nearly beaten by a political newcomer and actually lost
his home base of Greene County.

But he's not ready to quit. And whatever the political fallout is, he insists
that when "the presentments are made" in the current investigation, he will
be in the clear.