Wolf ethics reform plan deserves consideration

Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed sensible changes in the way the Pennsylvania Legislature conducts business.

When it comes to ethics reform in Pennsylvania politics, state Capitol dwellers are content to talk about it like most talk about the weather: They’ll complain some and make noises about wanting to clean up state government’s act.

But when the political scandal equivalent to a blizzard or Category 4 hurricane finally hits, they’ll inevitably do some token cleanup. Say, shoveling just a bit of the front walk or half-heartedly straightening a broken shutter, then declaring victory and going back inside.

We are talking, after all, about an institution that can’t even vote to reduce its own size without inserting a poison pill guaranteed to kill its own attempts at reform.

It’s tempting to regard the ethics reform package that Gov. Tom Wolf rolled out last week in the same jaundiced light, election-year posturing by an incumbent governor who’s likely to face a bruising re-election campaign this fall.

The proposals in Wolf’s “Citizens First” are hardly new.

In fact, they’re the goodgovernment equivalent of a repackaged greatest hits collection, put together by some hoary 1970s classic rock band that insists on touring even though it’s down to one original member who’s bought the naming rights from his old bandmates.

Let’s review: A gift ban for public officials. Campaign finance reform. Receipts for expenses. Pay-to-play protections. A No-Budget, No-Pay bill. Dream big, governor. They’re the same tunes, the same tired refrains, the only difference being an unreleased demo of the lead singer recording the one hit single from 1982 into his answering machine.

But they deserve serious discussion — and, wait for it — actual votes that would make them law.

Wolf’s already instituted a gift ban for the executive branch and has made some progress — but not enough — on government accountability.

The Legislature, meanwhile, parties like its 1999, taking trips, accepting sports tickets and all sorts of goodies; all entirely legal as long as it’s reported to the state Ethics Commission.

Campaign finance reform? That’s a proposal that’s been floating around the halls of power in Pennsylvania since William Penn made his first treaty with the Lenape tribe in 1682.

Pennsylvania imposes no limits on how much a state lawmaker can raise or spend. The only ban is on direct corporate contributions.

Meanwhile, some states impose reasonable limits on the influence of money on their politics. Others are moving to ban fundraising altogether while their Legislatures are in session.

And at least once a budget cycle, some well-meaning lawmaker, as the budget deadline speeds toward the Earth like the comet in “Deep Impact,” will float a no-budget/ no-pay bill.

Yes, there will be equally well-meaning editorials, but the legislation will generate a collective eyeroll and then go back to ignoring the coming apocalypse.

And all of this is too bad, since the ultimate losers here are the taxpayers, who end up with a largely unaccountable institution that’s repeatedly riddled by corruption and scandal and padded by perks and pensions, one that remains profoundly uninterested in fixing its ways.

There is a reason that Pennsylvania received an “F’’ in 2015 from the Center for Public Integrity, finishing 45th nationwide for ethics and transparency.

Lawmakers and Wolf talk a big game about making Pennsylvania a leader among states, a home to Amazon’s HQ2, and a welcoming place to live for younger Americans who want to settle down somewhere both inexpensive and quite livable.

“We’ve been managing a decline since (Republican Dick) Thornburgh was governor,” Robert C. Wonderling, the CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, told PennLive’s editorial board not long ago. “We were supposed to pivot from a post-industrial world, but I don’t think we’ve ever fully pivoted. We used to be the global headquarters for (large) companies, now we have regional outposts.”

But until, or unless, Pennsylvania’s political class gets the fundamentals right, the good stuff that Wonderling wants to see happen just won’t happen.

And policymakers only will have themselves to blame.