Sunday, June 17, 2007

Voted Out, Patronage Welfare

Let's see the voters threw them out of office after the midnight raise, now they are in created jobs?

"For example, former Sen. Joe Conti, a Bucks County Republican, moved into a newly created role as chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, the agency that runs the state monopoly on wine and spirits. Gov. Rendell had recommended that the board create the $150,000-a-year job and fill it with Conti in December - a move strongly opposed by board chairman Jonathan Newman, who soon resigned in protest.

Brett Feese, former House appropriations chairman, gave up his Lycoming County seat and is making $155,000 annually as the top lawyer for Republicans in the House.

On Nov. 30, the day he was to leave office after 10 years, Rep. Mark McNaughton, a Harrisburg-area Republican, was nominated by then-Speaker John Perzel (R., Phila.) to join the Gaming Control Board. But McNaughton's nomination to the $145,000-a-year post was pulled after Perzel lost his speaker's post in January.

Like Cornell, G. Terry Madonna, a politics professor and pollster at Franklin and Marshall College, said that on one hand it might make sense to place former legislators in bureaucratic jobs.

"They have experience and expertise. But it looks like a reward for past performance and loyalty. It's legislative leaders taking care of their own," Madonna said. "It's been going on for a long time, and it's not likely to stop."

HMMM and people are worried about extended unemployment benefits.

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