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Letters: Two Pa. changes to avoid corruption

The Inquirer has reported that former Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord wore a wire to record conversations during his final weeks in office ("Sources: McCord wore wire in probe," Thursday). And the Republican nominee for state attorney general,

Former Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord.
Former Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord.Read moreAP file photo

ISSUE | PA. CONSTITUTION

Anticorruption moves

The Inquirer has reported that former Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord wore a wire to record conversations during his final weeks in office ("Sources: McCord wore wire in probe," Thursday). And the Republican nominee for state attorney general, John Rafferty, has challenged the Democratic nominee, Josh Shapiro, to join him in pledging that if elected, he would not run for governor during his four-year term ("Sparring begins in campaign for A.G.," Thursday).

As a former state secretary of commerce, I recommend two changes to the state constitution that would benefit Pennsylvanians:

1. Make the treasurer's position a cabinet-level office accountable to the governor instead of an independently elected row office.

2. Prohibit the attorney general and auditor from running for any other office during their terms.

There's no public benefit for the treasurer to operate independent of the other executive functions. The treasurers who ran into legal trouble in the past 30 years arguably did so because of their independent standing.

The prosecutorial and audit roles should be independent, but the occupants should have their own political agendas restrained. (Consider the Kathleen Kane misadventure.)

In an ideal world, these changes would be made. In the meantime, Rafferty's challenge to Shapiro is a fair one.

Andrew Greenberg, Bryn Mawr