Editorial: Who said what?

A federal appeals court panel in Philadelphia has struck a welcome blow for openness in state and local government in Pennsylvania.

The ruling came on the eve of Monday's call by a bipartisan group of lawmakers for creation of a Public Integrity Commission. With the state's expanded open-records law now in full force, the ruling may be another small indication the stars are aligning for greater scrutiny of those conducting the public's business.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision that ruled free-speech rights were violated by the state's gag rule on disclosing complaints to the State Ethics Commission.

Political activist Eugene Stilp had challenged the gag rule after he was sanctioned for revealing details of a complaint he filed in late 2007. Stilp's claim that a legislative leader improperly used public funds for political purposes was dismissed, but the ethics panel went after Stilp over the gag-rule violation.

With good reason, the three-judge panel ruled that "a blanket prohibition on disclosure of a filed complaint stifles political speech near the core of the First Amendment." Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Jane Roth also wrote that the gag "impairs the public's ability to evaluate whether the Ethics Commission is properly fulfilling its statutory mission to investigate alleged violations of the Ethics Act."

State officials defended the gag rule as a protection against anyone making unfounded allegations for political purposes. But there are adequate safeguards in the state ethics law that provide criminal penalties for making a bogus complaint. So the unavoidable perception is that the gag rule primarily is meant to shield those in power from embarrassment and scrutiny.

Since the court ruled that the gag rule cannot be enforced, it's time for state lawmakers to strike it from the books. That would be a natural step when work gets under way on the proposal for an integrity commission, which its proponents say should be merged with the Ethics Commission.

An irony of the gag-rule saga is that Stilp had alleged in his ethics complaint that former House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D., Greene) used state funds for political polling. While DeWeese was cleared by the ethics panel of those allegations, he was soon caught up in Attorney General Tom Corbett's "Bonusgate" probe - and is facing trial on criminal charges that he used House staffers to do campaign work.

Stilp's activism during the 2005 state pay-raise revolt earned him an Inquirer Citizen of the Year award, and now he can take pride in having chipped away at secrecy over ethical complaints.