Taxpayers have right to see expenses of Pa. legislators

We understand why some state House members might be reluctant to have their expenses posted online for all to see.

If we had spent $144 in taxpayer money on a “selfie ring light with tripod stand,” as the House chief clerk did on a member’s or members’ behalf in August, we’d be embarrassed, not least because you can get a decent ring light — tripod included — for less than half that price.

We’d be even more reluctant to report the other technologyrelated purchases that reporters Sam Janesch and Brad Bumsted of the LNP Media Group’s watchdog publication The Caucus found on House expense reports.

Those purchases included a 360-degree videoconferencing camera and microphone that cost $999; part of a teleprompter mirror — not even a whole one — that cost $865.41; six photo-shoot backdrops — including a green screen — that cost $4,993.06; and six Canon digital cameras that cost $14,094.

Why on Earth would lawmakers need to spend nearly $5,000 in taxpayer money on photo-shoot backdrops? Is the state Capitol rotunda not picturesque enough? Was someone unveiling a new fashion line or a new advertising campaign?

These are ridiculous sums of money. And we might never have known about them had

The Caucus not filed a Right-toKnow request.

State House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Drumore Township, told The Caucus that he believes posting expense records online is “best practice” — he said he’s been doing it since 2007, when he was in his first term — and members can continue doing it individually. About 10% of the 203 House members do so now, The Caucus reported.

But Cutler also said putting every representative’s expenses online automatically would require a change in House rules, requiring a majority vote by members of the Republican-controlled chamber. And there is no proposed rules change pending.

As the House speaker, Cutler could make the change a priority. We’d urge him to do this without delay.

It would discourage lawmakers “from doing things against the taxpayers’ interests,” former Rep. Dan Truitt, R-Chester County, told The Caucus. “They are less likely to live high off the hog if they know somebody is watching.”

While in office, Truitt tried admirably — and unfortunately, unsuccessfully — to eliminate lawmakers’ per diems, the daily expenses for food and lodging that they lamentably can claim on top of their generous salaries.

Truitt endorsed the state Senate’s approach of having the expenses posted by the Senate chief clerk’s office, which administers senators’ reimbursements.

The House has a chief clerk who could do this, too.

As Janesch and Bumsted wrote, “The Senate began posting its expenses in full each month last September, following a series of stories from The Caucus and Spotlight PA. Those stories revealed that lawmakers had spent $203 million, not including salaries and benefits, from 2017 through 2020.

“The reporting found that lawmakers spent $37 million on district offices and $20 million to outside lawyers over those four years. About $20 million went directly into lawmakers’ pockets in the form of reimbursements for meals, mileage subsidies, per diems and other expenses.”

So we’re talking about piles of taxpayer money. And we’re not comfortable with the idea of so much money being spent by House members without transparency.

The Senate’s online reports are found on the chamber’s

Right-to-Know Law webpage. They are updated monthly and now cover July 2021 through January 2022.

The system isn’t perfect: There “is no easily searchable database allowing members of the public to easily look up total spending or spending by category — like the total amount a senator collected in per diems for the month.”

But it’s a vast improvement over counting on individual state House members to post their expenses online themselves.

There needs to be a system in place to ensure that the expenses of all 203 of the state House members are posted online and in a uniform way.

The late UCLA basketball coach John Wooden is said to have observed that the “true test” of someone’s character is what he or she “does when no one is watching.”

What happens when no one is watching state lawmakers is that they spend our money freely and shamelessly.

In Harrisburg, the more eyes, the better.