After years of evading their responsibility to account for how they spend the public’s money, members of the state House have an opportunity to establish far greater transparency regarding their own conduct.
As soon as this week, the House could vote on a bill that would require posting online not only the amount that each member spends on expenses, but the details of those expenses.
In a mastery of understatement, Republican Rep. Keith Gillespie of York, chief sponsor of the disclosure bill, put it this way: “Some of my colleagues or former colleagues have not necessarily been very transparent or in some cases abused the reimbursements, so this will hopefully put a safety net in place so those abuses will no longer happen.”
The bill not only is a victory for transparency but for the investigative journalism that produced the pressure for reform.
In a joint investigative effort, the news organizations The Caucus and Spotlight PA produced a 2021 series, “Hidden Tab.”
It found that for the four years, 2017 through 2020, the General Assembly spent $203 million to feed, house, transport and provide rental offices and more for lawmakers and their staff. About $20 million of that was paid directly to lawmakers as reimbursements for meals, mileage subsidies, per diems and other expenses.
Yet reporters ran into walls of obfuscation, including pushback from legislative lawyers also paid with public money, when they attempted to determine exactly how lawmakers had spent that money.
Gillespie’s bill, which House leaders plan to fast-track to a vote, would require that all members’ expenses not only be posted online, but in an interactive, user-friendly, easily searchable database that would enable taxpayers to track individual lawmakers.
The Senate already has a similar system, so if Gillespie’s bill passes, an easily accessible database for all legislative expenses would be in place by Jan. 1.
Such transparency would make for more accountable governance beyond the question of expenses. The House unanimously should approve the measure.
— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre (TNS)
