Kathleen Eakin holds post of deputy chief counsel for senate Republicans
Kathleen Eakin, a top lawyer for Republicans in the state senate, and sister of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Michael Eakin, says she’s not involved in senate Republican efforts to remove Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane from office.
Nor, Eakin says, does she “anticipate” working on any of the issues involving Kane or her brother.
Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati
Even so, it took me several days of back-and-forth emailing with Kathleen Eakin before she would simply confirm that she was Justice Eakin’s sister. And that only happened, in the end, after I was forced to call Justice Eakin’s chambers to confirm that he had a sister named Kathleen who worked as an attorney in the state senate.
On Friday, GOP Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati announced a committee to consider removing Kane from office using an obscure constitutional clause.
While Justice Eakin’s career has lately been in the spotlight, less known is that his sister has also held a prominent place in Pennsylvania political and legal circles.
Last November, Sen. Scarnati issued a press release that explained some of highlights of the career of Kathleen Eakin, known as Kathy.
“Serving as Deputy Chief Counsel to the Majority Leader (Sen. Jake Corman) will be Kathy Eakin,” read Scarnati’s press release.
“Ms. Eakin has worked for the Commonwealth for over 35 years, including as Deputy General Counsel for Legislation and Secretary of Legislative Affairs for Governor Ridge and Counsel to the Senate Republican Caucus and Senate Judiciary Committee….
“‘I am very fortunate that Kathy Eakin is able to bring her advanced legal expertise to my team,” Senator Corman said. “Her experience in both the executive and legislative branches will continue to serve the Caucus well.’
“‘Kathy is one of the Senate’s best lawyers and one of the hardest working individuals I know,” (Chief Counsel for the Majority Leader Dave) Thomas said. “She will remain a true asset to the Senate Republican Caucus and I am honored to have the pleasure of working with her.”
A 1999 press release from the office of then Gov. Tom Ridge, issued at the time of Kathy Eakin’s appointment to the job of Legislative Secretary, noted that she “previously served as assistant counsel to the Senate Majority Legal Staff from 1992 to 1995; counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1984 to 1992; and assistant counsel to Sen. Robert C. Jubelirer, who then was Senate Republican floor leader, from 1982 to 1984.”
“The Secretary for Legislative Affairs is the Governor’s principal representative on all issues and activities related to the General Assembly,” Gov. Ridge’s office explained of Kathy Eakin’s role at the time. “The Office of Legislative Affairs helps to identify and develop the Governor’s legislative initiatives; coordinates the development and introduction of legislative initiatives by other state agencies; and serves as the principal point of contact between the members of the General Assembly and the Office of the Governor.”
Though she has long experience with the state senate’s Judiciary Committee, which conceivably would play a key role in any removal from office of either the attorney general or a Supreme Court justice, Kathleen Eakin says she has played no role in the controversy surrounding AG Kane and her brother, Justice Michael Eakin. Nor, she says, does she “anticipate” playing a role.
Her brother, Justice Michael Eakin, is currently enmeshed in a high-profile and increasingly ugly battle with Kane over thousands of pornographic or otherwise unseemly emails sent between state and federal office holders, including Justice Eakin and one of his former brethren on the high court, Justice Seamus McCaffery.
‘I do not anticipate working on any committee issues’
Last Friday, state senate president Scarnati announced the formation of a committee of seven state senators, including himself, to explore the possibility of removing Kane from office.
“Members voted today to establish the committee,” Kathy Eakin wrote me by email this Monday. “General Counsel and several staff attorneys have been working on it. I have been working on other unrelated issues like pension and property tax. I have had no role in the work done thus for nor do I anticipate working on any committee issues. Senator Corman is not on the committee. Senator Scarnati has counsel as do Baker and Gordner. They will be handling the review. I am deputy chief counsel so any issues for Senator Corman would be handled by his chief counsel.”
Senate Republicans say Kathy Eakin works out of Majority Leader Sen. Corman’s office.
When asked about negating any perception of conflicts of interest involving Deputy Chief Counsel Kathy Eakin and efforts to remove AG Kane from office by Justice Eakin’s supporters, Kane’s spokesperson Chuck Ardo expressed surprise.
“I wasn’t aware (Justice Eakin’s sister) was there until this minute when you told me,” Ardo said.
Ardo questioned whether that Kathy Eakin’s statement that she “did not anticipate working on any committee issues” would be enough.
“She’s still there, isn’t she?” Ardo said.
Ardo suggested there should be a formal “firewall” between Justice Eakin’s close relatives or political friends and any senate effort to remove Kane from office.
Stacey Witalec, press secretary for the Democratic state senate caucus and Sen. Jay Costa, seemed to agree.
“I didn’t know about this,” Witalec said. “Yes, I get the point. I’ll have to bring this up with leadership.”
Republican efforts to throw AG Kane from office already appear off to a rocky start.
“Apparently, this initiative was first revealed by (Republican) State Sen. John Rafferty when he told a group of Berks County Republicans last night,” observed the website politicspa.com on Friday. “Undoubtedly, Senate leaders won’t be happy about that as Rafferty is running to replace Kane and the body seems to want this to be a bipartisan endeavor.”
But other members of the senate committee exploring options to remove Kane from office also carry political baggage.
Committee member Sen. Art Haywood, for example, hails from Montgomery County, where Kane has been charged with crimes supposedly leading the senate to explore removing her from office.
Family feud
Pennsylvania politics at times can seem almost feudal, with warring family clans.
The last big state senate effort to remove a politician from office, the impeachment trial of Justice Rolf Larsen by the senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, degenerated into a protracted and bare-knuckle family feud between Justice Larsen and fellow Justice Stephen Zappala.
At Larsen’s senate impeachment trial, the senate and its Judiciary Committee considered Larsen’s allegations that Justice Zappala intervened in court cases involving business interests of Zappala’s brothers’ bond underwriting business. Also at issue, though not much explored, were the financial records of Justice Zapapa’s son, Gregory.
Gregory Zappala went on to co-own the private detention facilities accused of bribing state judges, leading to the unlawful imprisonment of some 6,500 minors in the notorious Luzerne County Cash for Kids Scandal.
The troubled state Supreme Court subsequently refused to investigate the Cash for Kids scandal for almost eighteen months. Gregory Zappala maintains he had no idea that his business partner was bribing judges, and that he himself was a victim in the scheme.
Gregory Zappala was not charged with a crime. His brother, Stephen Jr., is district attorney of Allegheny County.
Should someone in the senate be sharing confidences with Justice Eakin, or other justices, it would likely be in a manner much less dramatic than similar accusations hurled during the Larson impeachment.
Larson wrote in court papers before his impeachment that he’d nearly been run over by a car driven by state Senator Vince Fumo, with Justice Zappala seated beside the senator, in front of an upscale Philadelphia hotel.
Justice “Zappala was a passenger in a car driven by Philadelphia state Sen. Vincent Fumo, chairman of the state Senate Appropriations Committee,” the Allentown Morning Call summed up.
“Fumo, widely regarded as the premier backroom power broker in Harrisburg, reportedly is a longtime friend of Zappala’s.”
Rocky start and backfires
Meanwhile, this week, there were more indications that the state senate Republican efforts to remove AG Kane from office may have backfired.
This Tuesday, State Sen. Anthony Williams, a Democrat from Philadelphia, called on Justice Eakin to resign from the high court over the growing email scandal.
“Justice Eakin’s presence has become a major distraction to the court’s work at a time when it has already been riddled with scandal,” Sen. Williams told reporters. “His transgressions have also called into question his judgment in cases dealing with women and people of color.
“While I appreciate his apologies, it’s no different than a surgeon who chopped off the wrong leg. Apology is appreciated, but there’s a consequence for your actions. The court should feel and he should feel compelled to honor (those consequences) if there is any moral compass to this conversation.”
Any effort to remove either Kane or Justice Eakin from office by action of the state senate will require Democratic votes, presumably in either the senate as a whole, or in the Judiciary Committee, where the justice’s sister Kathy worked for eight years.
All the more reason for a Federal Investigation! Who is responsible to request one?