2006 Pennsylvania General Assembly bonus controversy information
In 2007, Pennsylvania Attorney General Republican Tom Corbett began investigating $3.8 million in public bonuses which were paid to state legislative staffers in the Pennsylvania General Assembly to work on party politics and campaigns. While the bonuses themselves are not illegal, state law forbids state employees from performing campaign work while on the job and forbids payment for campaign work out of taxpayer funds.[1][2]
Pennsylvania media referred to this scandal as "bonusgate."[3] Originally the investigation centered on Democratic and Republican Caucuses (top state committees of each party) in each of the state's two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Democrats dominated the investigate in the highly (at that time) Democratic state.[4]
As the investigation continued other areas of concern arose, including findings of judicial corruption, nepotism, conflict of interest and Republican corruption in a subsidiary investigation dubbed "Computergate" by the press, in which Republicans used state monies to pay state employees to develop computer programs to find and target Republican voters.[5]
Still later investigations discovered the Kids for cash scandal in 2008 which judges in Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, were paid kickbacks to ensure juveniles were sent to for-profit facilities.[6]
There was also a skimming operation in which two not-for-profit organizations in Beaver County, PA called Beaver Investment for Growth (BIG), had funds skimmed to fund political campaigns.[7]
This was followed by disciplinary action against politicians who sent or received raunchy, racist and misogynistic emails called "Porngate".[8]
In 2014 still more bribery was discovered in the Pennsylvania Attorney General Sting.[9]
^DeWeese: 7 aides ousted over e-mail | Philadelphia Inquirer | 12/18/2007
^Dennis B. Roddy and Tracie Mauriello, E-mails show how Dems tied staffers' bonuses to campaign work, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 12/16/07
^What rises to 'criminal level' in Bonusgate? - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Archived 2008-01-03 at the Wayback Machine
^http://www.post-gazette.com | Bonusgate: How the statewide public corruption case unfolded | February 13, 2012 | [1]
^Tu, Alan (2009-11-12). "Former PA House Speaker John Perzel indicted". WHYY. Archived from the original on 2012-03-07. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
^Urbina, Ian (February 26, 2009). "70 Youths Sue Former Judges in Detention Kickback Case". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-08-25.
^"Pa. High Court to Hear Ex-Lawmaker's Corruption Appeal - Law360".
^Gambacorta, David (November 22, 2016). "Is This The End of Porngate? – Taxpayers can finally see an independent report that cost them $385,000. But they won't glimpse the names of state employees who were caught emailing offensive messages". phillymag.com. Metro. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
^"Waters, James plead guilty to bribery; Lowery Brown picks trial".
and 24 Related for: 2006 Pennsylvania General Assembly bonus controversy information
state legislative staffers in the PennsylvaniaGeneralAssembly to work on party politics and campaigns. While the bonuses themselves are not illegal, state...
Truitt. 2006PennsylvaniaGeneralAssemblybonuscontroversy Russ Diamond Eric Epstein Drew Crompton Chris Lilik Gene Stilp List of Pennsylvania state legislatures...
corruption for giving away $26,000 of state funds in the 2006PennsylvaniaGeneralAssemblybonuscontroversy. Sentenced to six months' house arrest, probation...
November 12, 2009, on 62 counts of participating in the 2006PennsylvaniaGeneralAssemblybonuscontroversy also known as Computergate, a scheme that used state...
against 12 individuals connected to the 2006 Pennsylvania GeneralAssemblybonuscontroversy. Veon, who had been the House minority whip at the time of...
legislative bonuscontroversy, saying, "We always had hoped Mike would come to work for us." On July 10, 2008, Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett...
financial quarter. This event was dubbed the Hot Coffee mod controversy. In Japan, controversy over an eroge called Rape in 1989 led to the game being banned...
New York. Washington crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, where Lee's replacement General John Sullivan joined him with 2,000 more troops. The...
"Petition from the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery". Archived from the original on May 21, 2006. Retrieved May 21, 2006. John Paul Kaminski...
switch to Central Time, but the GeneralAssembly could not come to terms. Ultimately after a long debate, the GeneralAssembly adopted Eastern Daylight Saving...
charges, following the Attorney General's investigation into the 2006bonuscontroversy. According to State Attorney General Tom Corbett, LaGrotta allegedly...
Township, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, with plans to build a shopping complex anchored by a Walmart. While there were initially no general objections...
from around the world, joining with low interest rates and Wall Street bonuses to fuel the growth of the real estate market. Important new sectors, such...
concert appeared as a special edition bonus DVD in U2's November 2006 compilation album U218 Singles. The 20 February 2006 show in São Paulo, Brazil was broadcast...
GOP presidential primary candidate). During the March 2009 AIG bonus payments controversy, Giuliani called for U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner...
Retrieved 15 January 2021. Senate, Ohio GeneralAssembly (1849). Journal of the Senate of the ... GeneralAssembly of the State of Ohio ... "Parliament of...
assembly including a stored-value card, an edible product, and a wrapper", was granted to Michael R. Francis and Barry C. Brooks on February 28, 2006...
place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential...
Suppliers at the IEEE session on "Components for Miniaturized Electronic Assemblies". According to the Missiles and Rockets magazine, in 1964 "Molecular packaging...
prior to the ban in 2010. Pamela Wood (March 27, 2017). "Maryland GeneralAssembly approves fracking ban". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original...
would coexist under the principle of toleration. In 1649, the Maryland GeneralAssembly passed an Act Concerning Religion, which enshrined this principle by...