It’s a good thing Pennsylvania doesn’t have government-funded campaigns, as a recent story detailing “Bonusgate” in the Philadelphia Inquirer illustrates.
I’m sure “reform” groups in Pennsylvania will try to use this story to insinuate that campaign finance reforms are needed, including taxpayer financed campaigns. The real story, though, is how state officials can manipulate the political process to crush their opponents at the behest of powerful incumbents:
Between 2004 and 2006, House Democrats awarded more than $1 million in previously secret government bonuses to hundreds of staffers. Most of that, the government alleges, was given to aides as rewards for working on political campaigns on state time.
It was a scheme allegedly designed by Veon, then the number-two House Democrat, and carried out by Manzo and other top staffers to stick the taxpayers with the cost of helping Democrats win elections.
Manzo, who served as chief of staff to then-Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D., Greene), was also charged with putting his girlfriend, a former beauty queen, into a no-work state job in a phony state office above a cigar store in Pittsburgh. Manzo’s guilty plea included an admission to that allegation as well.
Immediately after Manzo entered his plea, it was his wife’s turn. Rachel Manzo, former executive director of the House Democratic Policy Committee, pleaded guilty to one theft count.
