SCRANTON TIMES-LEADER Editorial: Government corruption in Pennsylvania is roughly as consistent as the Earth’s rotation. But because it always is prosecuted and publicly reported in terms of individual cases, it’s hard to place a price tag on overall corruption. But according to a valuable new study, the price tag in Pennsylvania for state government corruption alone is $1,308 per resident per year — about $16.6 billion …
Pennsylvania is undercounted in several ways. The study does not include numerous state-level convictions of Pennsylvania officials over that period and following it. And two of the Senate’s most powerful members, Robert Mellow of Lackawanna County and Vincent Fumo of Philadelphia, were convicted of federal corruption charges after 2008.
But the biggest underappreciation of Pennsylvania corruption in the study is that in the commonwealth, a good deal of corruption is legal . As illustrated in the recent controversy over a failed sting operation against four state representatives from Philadelphia, it is legal for state legislators to accept “gifts” from people seeking to influence state government business, as long as the lawmakers report amounts above certain thresholds. And the state has no limits on campaign contributions to state candidates… (more)
