Fumo will quit race, sources say

State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, besieged by legal, health and political problems, is expected to announce today that he will not seek reelection, sources said.

Fumo's press office said this morning that he would hold a press conference 11:30 a.m. today at the Pennsylvania  Convention Center.  The statement said Gov. Rendell will attend.

Fumo, a power in Philadelphia and Harrisburg politics for 30 years, is scheduled to be joined by Gov. Rendell in Philadelphia to announce that Fumo will drop out of April's Democratic primary, the political sources said.

The influential legislator is expected to appear at the Convention Center. He has told advisers that he needs to recover from a March 2 heart attack that sent him to the hospital for a week. He was released on Sunday.

In September, Fumo is scheduled to go on trial on a massive 139-count indictment charging him with defrauding taxpayers and two nonprofit organizations, and with attempting a coverup to obstruct the FBI investigation.

He is facing three opponents in the April 22 primary, including a well-financed effort from John Dougherty, the labor leader who is a bitter Fumo enemy.

A person close to the matter said that Fumo mulled the matter while in the hospital. He told advisers of his final decision last night, two days after his release.

"It's fair to say the decision was made today [Tuesday]," the person said.

Ken Snyder, a Fumo spokesman, and other Fumo aides did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment.

Shortly after the heart attack, several people close to the senator said that although Fumo was under enormous stress, they doubted he would drop out.

"He's a fighter," one person close to him said last week. "It's what he does: Vince Fumo is a state senator 24/7. It's his life."

Along with the bid by Dougherty, Fumo was to face a primary challenge from lawyer Lawrence Farnese and community activist Anne Dicker.

With his sizable war chest and army of union workers, Dougherty is viewed by many political analysts to be the likely new front-runner. However, sources have said he is under federal investigation; Dougherty has dismissed the probe, saying it will find no wrongdoing of any kind.

G. Terry Madonna, a politics professor and pollster at Franklin and Marshall College, called Fumo's decision "stunning news" but nonetheless understandable given what he is facing: a forthcoming corruption trial, health issues, and a tough primary fight.

"To have to face all those things at the same time strains all credulity," Madonna said.

"Legislators like Fumo only come around every generation or two," Madonna said. "It's hard to imagine what the Capitol will be like without him. It will be a long time before someone with his acumen, his political abilities, replaces him."

Brilliant and uncommonly effective, but also thought by many to be vindictive, Fumo, 64, put his powerful stamp on Philadelphia and Pennsylvania politics for years.

Just one of seven state senators from Philadelphia, a Democrat in a state capital often dominated by Republicans, Fumo wielded influence out of proportion to his nominal position.

In a sign of his clout, Fumo was the key legislator in ushering casino gambling into Pennsylvania.

And over the years, Fumo boasted with considerable justification that he got a legislature hostile to Philadelphia to give the city $8 billion.

"Vince Fumo plays politics in three dimensions while everyone else plays in two," Ted Hershberg, a professor of public policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said a few years ago. "He's several moves ahead."

At the same time, the federal indictment portrayed Fumo as using his political aides as personal servants and with misusing a South Philadelphia charity run by a former aide, the Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods.

As The Inquirer first disclosed, Fumo struck a secret deal with Peco Energy under which the utility gave the nonprofit $17 million - and Fumo dropped his legal opposition to the utility's plans.

The FBI and federal prosecutors ultimately decided that there was nothing criminal about the deal with Peco, but, in digging into the charity, they ended up charging Fumo with using its money for personal benefit.

Ruth Arnao, former executive director of the charity and a close Fumo friend and former legislative aide, is to stand trial with Fumo, along with two other former aides.

The grand jury indictment also charges him with cruising for free on luxury yachts chartered or owned by the Independence Seaport Museum. Fumo was once a board member there and was instrumental in steering its millions in state spending.

The federal indictment is the third time that Fumo has faced criminal charges.

In the 1970s, prosecutors failed to convict him in a vote-fraud case and one alleging he had hired "ghost employees."

In 1973, he was charged with voter fraud by city prosecutors, but the charges were later withdrawn.

Later, Fumo was indicted with three others for helping Buddy Cianfrani to add 33 ghost employees to the state payroll. He was convicted by a jury, but a federal judge overturned the decision in 1981.

He joined the Senate in 1997 when his old mentor, Henry J. "Buddy" Cianfrani, was forced to quit the Senate in 1977 in a scandal involving ghost employees and other abuses of office. Fumo took Cianfrani's seat.