Bonus inquiry spreads to GOP

HARRISBURG - In the first public sign that the investigation into legislative bonuses is widening, the state Attorney General's Office has sent out a fresh round of subpoenas, this time seeking personnel information on Republican staffers in the House of Representatives.

Until now, the investigation by Attorney General Tom Corbett, a Republican, had appeared to focus solely on Democrats in the House, leading top Democrats in the state to complain that the probe was motivated by politics and prompting calls for an independent prosecutor.

But on Monday, five new subpoenas were delivered to House Republicans, House Minority Leader Sam Smith (R., Jefferson) confirmed yesterday. Smith said the subpoenas were for personnel records, but he declined to give any more detail.

Corbett has been investigating whether bonuses handed out last year to legislative aides were given as a reward for political campaign work they also performed.

Smith did say that the information being sought in the subpoenas was not otherwise publicly available and that the caucus would cooperate fully. He also confirmed that the caucus had not received subpoenas requesting grand-jury testimony from House Republican staffers.

Smith made the comments after emerging from a private meeting with his caucus, where he told fellow Republicans about the subpoenas.

"This is information that we expected they were going to need to seek if the Attorney General's Office was thoroughly investigating everybody," Smith said. "We are not surprised, but it is information that we are not at liberty to hand over to them" without a subpoena.

As of yesterday afternoon, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate said they had not received any subpoenas for information or grand-jury testimony.

The grand-jury investigation has been under way in Harrisburg since August. It is also looking into whether campaign work was conducted on government time.

Last year, House Democrats awarded just shy of $1.9 million in bonuses to 717 employees. House Republicans gave $270,000 to 45 aides, Senate Republicans gave $180,000 to 16 workers, and Senate Democrats awarded $38,000 to a dozen.

To date, 14 aides - all from the House Democratic caucus - have been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury. Agents for the Attorney General's Office also seized 20 boxes of records from the caucus' legislative research offices in August.

Because of the focus on the House Democratic caucus, some leading Democrats in the state accused Corbett's office of partisanship. They maintained that there were many examples of bonuses handed out on the GOP side, and that Corbett had so far brushed them aside.

Last week, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli claimed that Corbett had shown "an appearance of partisanship" in his investigation and called on the attorney general to turn the case over to an independent counsel.

Morganelli is a likely Democratic candidate for attorney general in next year's election.

Kevin Harley, Corbett's spokesman, declined yesterday to discuss any subpoenas for records or grand-jury testimony.

But Corbett's office has said repeatedly that the inquiry, which started about six months ago, was examining bonuses awarded by Democrats and Republicans in both chambers.

"In this investigation, like in any other investigation, we will go where the evidence takes us," Harley said yesterday.

"When we initiated this, we said it was going to determine whether the bonuses that were paid were for legitimate work or whether they were as a reward for working on political campaigns, or whether work was done on legislative hours," he added.

T.J. Rooney, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said yesterday, "It's a good sign that the focus of the investigation has expanded beyond the House Democratic caucus."

"It's imperative that the investigation, and that justice, should be dispensed equally. Up until this point, it was a one-sided equation," said Rooney, who had earlier called Corbett's probe "Alberto Gonzales-like" in its focus.