HARRISBURG - Most of the 30 state lawmakers representing Northeast Pennsylvania report accepting no gifts valued above a high disclosure threshold in their financial interest statements for 2012 and 2013.
The few who did report gifts listed tickets, trips or conferences.
Not appearing in these statements are reports of large cash gifts - the target of reform bills in the latest Capitol ethics controversy stemming from a dropped sting operation conducted by the state attorney general's office.
The revelations that four Philadelphia House members allegedly accepted cash gifts amounting to thousands of dollars from a confidential informant during the sting operation have fueled new calls to strengthen the state ethics law.
Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane ended the sting operation after she took office in 2013, citing flaws with its operation, and no charges have been brought against the four lawmakers. But the Philadelphia district attorney has criticized her decision.
Reformers said the biggest problem is what the ethics law allows.
Currently, public officials can take unlimited gifts of unlimited value from lobbyists and individuals as long as they are publicly disclosed if above a monetary threshold to the ethics commission. They must disclose any tangible gifts valued at $250 or more in a given year and transportation, lodging and hospitality with a total value of $650 or more in a year.
These high thresholds can allow a lawmaker to accept a golf club and other items from a pro shop, tickets to many professional sports games and hospitality at the lobbying receptions and events that crowd a session week without disclosing it, Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, said.
Common Cause wants a total gift ban for all public officials.
"Pennsylvania must ban the practice of lobbyists, government contractors, regulated industries and others doing business with state and local government giving public officials any form of gift, hospitality, entertainment, travel or lodging benefits," Kauffman said. "By simply banning the practice, there would be no question as to what is acceptable and what is not. There would be no question as to what must be reported, or if someone has crossed a reporting threshold."
Here are the gifts reported in statements filed with the state Ethics Commission:
- Sen. John Blake, D-22, Archbald, reports a $900 gift of two tickets to the Pennsylvania Society Dinner in New York City last December from the prominent Harrisburg lobbying firm of Stephen Wojdak and Associates.
- Rep. Tarah Toohil, R-116, Butler Township, reports a $3,388 trip to Israel in 2012 financed by the Jewish Educational Foundation of Greater Philadelphia. A photo of Toohil riding on a camel with another legislator during that trip landed in an advertisement that Democrat Ransom Young ran while campaigning unsuccessfully against Toohil in 2012.
From last year, Toohil reports a gift of Penn State football tickets for a family of six valued at $354 from Pennsylvania State University. At the game, which she said other lawmakers attended, she discussed welfare fraud with the state secretary of public welfare.
"I am honored to have attended the Penn State football game and am a huge fan of a Penn State education," Toohil said in an email.
She reports transportation, lodging and hospitality valued at $1,622 from attending an American Legislative Exchange Council conference in Washington, D.C. in December 2013. From GOPAC, she reported receiving expenses of $836 for attending the group's conference in September 2013 in Nashville, Tenn.
Toohil said she met lawmakers from across the nation at the conferences and attended forums focusing on school property tax and public pension reform.
"The purpose of these conferences is to educate myself on how other states have succeeded or failed with implementing various public policies," she said.
- Reps. Mario Scavello, R-176, Mount Pocono, and Rosemary Brown, R-189, Middle Smithfield Township, each report a trip gift valued at $2,500 from Pocono Manor Resort in 2012. This reflects the cost of a private plane to fly a delegation of Monroe County officials to visit the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio, on a business trip lasting less than a day, Scavello said. The delegation helped persuade Kalahari to open a resort in Monroe County.
- Rep. Mike Carroll, D-118, accepted one gift, a rocking chair worth $694.
Boy Scouts from the Minsi Trails Conference presented him with the chair when naming him citizen of the year in 2010. The gift surprised Carroll.
"I was not prepared to take the awkward step of returning the rocking chair," he said.
- Sen. David Argall, R-29, and his wife went on a trip to Turkey paid for by Lehigh Dialogue, a group of Turkish-American businesspeople from Bethlehem, Northampton County. He reports the value at $2,650 for the trip that lasted a week and a half in 2012.
Members of Lehigh Dialogue were interested in how Turkey has rebuilt its economy and asked Argall to join them on a trip.
"Given my interest in job creating and inter-governmental studies, I said 'Sign me up,'" Argall said.
He learned about shifts to a free market that made Turkey a better place to do business and about Turkish speakers in nations spun off from the former Soviet Union that have asked Turkey for help in their own economic growth.
The mix of cultures was evident, too, as when Argall visited a mosque in Istanbul that originally had been a cathedral for Orthodox Christians.
"Imagine a religious edifice, now more of a museum, with Jesus on the ceiling and Mohammed on the wall. That's not what I'm used to in Tamaqua," Argall said.
- Sen. Pat Browne, R-16, Allentown, reports gifts valued at nearly $1,000 from Lehigh Valley Hospital Network during both years to provide and set up tables and chairs for a community health fair.
Lawmakers are zeroing in on banning cash gifts to themselves as a quick response to the sting scandal.
Sens. Lisa Baker, R-20, Lehman Township, and Lloyd Smucker, R-13, Lancaster, are introducing legislation to ban cash gifts, including U.S. and foreign currency, money orders, checks, gift cards and certificates and prepaid debit and credit cards.
"This is the simplest and most direct step," Baker said, adding that she is researching what other states have done to limit or ban gifts.
Baker said the Senate could vote soon to change its operating rules to ban cash gifts to senators only. "The ban on cash gifts can be accomplished quickly, while a discussion on the more general issue of gifts to public officials continues in earnest," said Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-9, Chester.
Since being elected to the Senate, Baker reported receiving no cash gifts, and her policy also requires members of her staff to return gifts and gift certificates.
Baker reported accepting hotel lodging and conference registration worth $812 from the Pennsylvania National Guard Association. She attended the 132nd General Conference of the National Guard Association of the United States in August 2010 in Austin, Texas.
During the conference, Baker, who is chairwoman of the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, received the Patrick Henry Award from the association.
The association paid for her lodging and registration, but she paid for airfare.
"It's the kind of thing that could potentially become part of the a greater ban," said Baker, who believes the proposed law and changes to Senate rules will start a wider discussion on what lawmakers can accept.
The House State Government Committee plans to vote on a cash gift ban bill soon, said the committee's chairman, Daryl Metcalfe, R-12, Cranberry Township. A ban wouldn't apply to cash gifts provided by close family members that are personal in nature, he said.
"That's (cash gift ban) essential, but it's also a bit minimalist," Kauffman said, adding that many states have tougher gifts laws.
He has written about how lobbyists use gifts as a tool of the trade.
"Lobbyists basically try to become professional `friends' and the gears of these friendships often are greased with gifts, food, hospitality and travel," he wrote. "Danger to our government occurs when these relationships break down public officials' due diligence or improperly bias their judgement."