Disgraced ex-House speakers reclaimed
Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives has taken the state’s Clean Slate law, which automatically seals the criminal records of some ex-offenders, and applied it to its former House speakers’ gold-framed portraits.
Without any fanfare or public notice last month, the House removed the shiny gold plaques that hung below the stately portraits of former Speakers John Perzel, Bill DeWeese and Herbert Fineman that explained the corruption-related convictions that sent them to prison.
Replacing them were the plaques that hung under the portraits until 2014. They are now similar to those plaques under the portraits of other former House speakers in the Capitol hallway. Those plaques list only the years the other speakers served in the House and the years they served as speaker.
House Chief Clerk Dave Reddecliff said the plaques were changed at the request of former House Speaker Mike Turzai in early June, before he resigned from office to take a position in the private sector.
“[He] said. ‘It’s my understanding that the prior speaker put them up. I’m making a decision to take them down. So I’m asking you to remove them,’” Mr. Reddecliff said, recalling the conversation he had with Mr. Turzai. “So we removed them.”
Fortunately, Mr. Reddecliff said, the House parliamentarian’s office had saved the old plaques, so they didn’t have to buy new ones.
Mr. Turzai, reached on Tuesday, declined to comment for this story.
A source close to the House said neither DeWeese nor Perzel requested the plaques’ removal. Instead, the source said the plaques were removed because including the list of convictions was considered unbecoming to the institution.
DeWeese confirmed that he didn’t ask for his plaque to be sanitized of any reference to his conviction. He added he had no reason to believe Perzel or Fineman’s family had made such a request either. DeWeese said he learned of the removal of “that melancholy tab under my portrait” from Mr. Turzai himself on the day Mr. Turzai left office.
“I was very gratified,” said DeWeese, who continues to maintain he is innocent of any criminal wrongdoing. “I think it was the right thing to do institutionally.”
Attempts to reach Perzel were unsuccessful on Tuesday.
The plaques noting the criminal convictions were placed on the portraits in response to mounting pressure on House and Senate leaders from their legislative colleagues to take down the portraits. Former Sen. Scott Wagner, a Republican from York County, even offered a nonbinding resolution calling for their removal.
Sam Smith, who was serving as House speaker at the time, told PennLive on Tuesday the placement of the plaques that included the conviction information was the compromise reached with those who wanted the portraits removed.
So wording was added to Perzel’s plaque to note his pleading guilty to a variety of corruption-related charges relating to diversion of taxpayer funds to a high-tech campaign machine to benefit GOP candidates. DeWeese’s notation referred to his conviction for using state resources for campaign purposes and state-paid employees on his election campaigns. Fineman’s plaque referenced his obstruction of justice convictions for accepting payments from parents seeking admission for their children to professional schools.