Billy Joel wasn’t talking about Pennsylvania politicians and their assorted supplicants and benefactors when he crooned that “some folks like to get away, take a holiday from the neighborhood….”
But this weekend those Pennsylvania folk very much are in Joel’s “ New York State of Mind.” Much of the state government’s power structure has left the neighborhood and decamped to Manhattan for the annual Pennsylvania Society weekend of back-slapping, campaign fundraising and deal-making at invitation-only events that further the cause of special-interest governance.
The annual event began in the late 1800s as a meeting of native Pennsylvanians living in New York City. But it morphed into an annual exercise in political skulduggery, in which the New York corporate masters of Pennsylvania’s rail, coal and steel industries summoned the state’s politicians to give them their annual instructions, and selected candidates for assorted Pennsylvania offices.
Things aren’t quite that direct these days. But many of the state’s political leaders still pinball from corporate reception to corporate reception at high-end Manhattan venues, offering direct personal access that is unavailable to most of their own constituents.
As unsavory as the spectacle is, it’s even worse for taking place in New York. Although the Pennsylvania Society itself has only about 2,000 members, the annual event draws thousands more Pennsylvanians — politicians, hangers-on, would-be candidates seeking affirmation and even Pennsylvania corporate interests forced to play on away territory. All of those Pennsylvanians spend millions of dollars every year on hotels, local transportation, restaurants, entertainment, and so on.
Even though the event might draw more scrutiny if it were not conducted two states to the east, the society should recognize the economic benefit of conducting the event in Pennsylvania, the state that it otherwise affects.
The society should move the event to Pennsylvania, perhaps alternating each year between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, so that Pennsylvania businesses, workers and taxpayers get something out of it besides the poor governance that it fosters.
— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre via TNS
