A political action committee supported primarily by Gov. Rendell stands accused of circumventing city campaign-finance rules and failing to disclose contributions to, among others, three of five Democratic candidates in the 2007 Philadelphia mayor's race.

The Philadelphia Board of Ethics went to court Tuesday to compel the PAC - Pennsylvanians for Better Leadership - to pay $30,000 in fines and amend its campaign-finance reports to show the missing information.

"You have a politically connected and well-funded PAC that has been operating outside of the law by failing to make the required disclosures," said Shane Creamer, executive director of the ethics board. As a result, he said, "The public hasn't had an opportunity to understand what this PAC has been doing."

The lawsuit, which the ethics board filed in Common Pleas Court, alleges 20 violations committed in 2007. The board did not allege any wrongdoing by Rendell, a Democrat, who donated $160,000 to the PAC in 2007.

Specifically, the suit cited 13 instances in which the PAC did not reveal $49,000 worth of donations it made to city, state, and federal candidates. Among them were U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (who received $5,000 on March 1, 2007); U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah ($2,000 on March 9, 2007); and state Rep. Dwight Evans ($10,000 on March 1, 2007). All were candidates in the Democratic mayoral primary.

Senators on Thursday complained that state gambling regulators too often operate out of the public view and alleged the Gaming Control Board isn't doing enough to protect taxpayers.

Board Chairman Mary DiGiacomo Colins said her agency has been "very transparent" and is free from improper influence.

"I have to believe that if there's any state agency that ranks lower than the governor or the Legislature in (public trust), I'm looking at it," Sen. John Rafferty, R-Montgomery County, said during an often-contentious hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The board wants the Legislature to increase its $33 million budget by $2.4 million. Gov. Ed Rendell, seeking to close a $2.3 billion state budget gap, proposed freezing the board's budget. Little about the board's finances came up during the hearing, as lawmakers unleashed pent-up frustrations on a board many of them say is unresponsive and opaque.

On Oct. 1, after a critical vote on a $700 billion financial industry bailout package, Sen. Arlen Specter issued a two-paragraph statement explaining why he "reluctantly" voted, along with 73 colleagues, for the measure.

Before the year was over, a Delaware-based bank holding company that counts the senator's wife as a nearly decade-long director got a $45.2 million infusion from the bill.

The financial firm was Bancorp Inc., with operations in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Joan Specter has been a director of the firm or its predecessors since 1999, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Asked Tuesday for comment, Specter spokeswoman Kate Kelly issued a brief statement denying that the senator had any role in securing money for the financial institution.

Seven in 10 Pennsylvanians overwhelmingly oppose Gov. Ed Rendell's proposal to allow counties to levy another 1 percent sales tax as well as his plan to consolidate the state's school districts, according to a Tribune-Review poll released Thursday.

The responders rejected by a 71 percent to 26 percent margin Rendell's suggestion to give 65 counties an add-on to the state's 6 percent sales tax. Three percent of those polled didn't know.

Allegheny County and Philadelphia, which charge a percentage point, would not get to levy more.

The poll by Franklin & Marshall College surveyed 644 adults between Feb. 17 and Sunday. It has a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.

By a 70 percent to 21 percent margin, with 9 percent unsure, residents said they oppose Rendell's idea to consolidate 500 school districts into 100 as a way to reduce costs.

Two Republican Senate leaders on Tuesday introduced a bill aimed at curbing "pay-to-play" practices that enable large campaign contributors to win state contracts.

The aim is to eliminate even the appearance of a conflict of interest, said Senate Majority Whip Jane Orie of McCandless, a sponsor.

"The citizens of Pennsylvania demand honest and transparent government," Orie said. "The bill will open processes which have taken place behind closed doors for too long."

Orie introduced the bill with Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi of Delaware County.

A similar bill won Senate approval by a 50-0 margin last year but it died in the House.

Coming soon: a mixed martial arts fight near you.

The State Athletic Commission has sanctioned the bouts, sometimes called "extreme fighting," which mix kickboxing, boxing, wrestling and martial arts. They're featured on Spike TV through the Ultimate Fighting Championship series.

Rules governing the sport take effect Friday, lifting a ban on such contests in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania joins a growing number of states that permit mixed martial arts, including Nevada, New Jersey, Maryland, California, Florida and Ohio.

Pennsylvania's Supreme Court is ordering a special prosecutor to look into alleged violations of grand jury secrecy in the case of a millionaire casino owner.

The court issued a pair of orders today that instructed Dauphin County President Judge Richard Lewis to appoint the special prosecutor.

It also released copies of a county judge's findings regarding grand jury secrecy to casino owner Louis DeNaples and the Rev. Joseph Sica, his friend who's accused of lying under oath.

The former chief of staff to Councilman Jack Kelly, his ex-campaign treasurer, and one of Kelly's chief campaign contributors were convicted by a federal jury yesterday of a conspiracy to buy influence in City Hall.

But the jurors rejected most of the bribery, mail-fraud, and wire-fraud charges against former Council aide Christopher Wright, ex-campaign treasurer Andrew Teitelman, and developer Ravinder "Ravi" Chawla. A fourth defendant, Hardeep Chawla, Ravi's brother, was acquitted.

Wright, 45, was found guilty on three of 13 counts that accused him of selling his services as Kelly's top aide to the Chawlas and Teitelman, the developer-brothers' company attorney.

Ravi Chawla was convicted on four of 12 counts, Teitelman on three of nine counts. Jurors came back with a verdict at 11 a.m., in their sixth day of deliberations. The trial began Jan. 27.

The three remained free on bail and face sentencing in May, with each facing approximately four to six years in prison, though the sentences could vary on either end.

Pennsylvania might risk forfeiting hundreds of millions of dollars in casino license fees if the Legislature legalizes video poker machines in bars and clubs, according to state Attorney General Tom Corbett.

Casino owners paid $50 million each for licenses. The 2004 slots law established that casinos get pro-rated rebates on the license fees if the state increases "the permissible number of licensed facilities" within 10 years.

"The essence of it is, if the state got in competition with casinos, they would get money back," Corbett said in an interview this week. He said his top civil lawyer raised concerns that legalizing video poker could impact licensing fees.

Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, publisher of the Daily News and the Inquirer, and owner of philly.com, announced today that it is voluntarily restructuring its debt under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

The case was filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, by attorney Lawrence G. McMichael, of Dilworth Paxson LLP.

The company emphasized that it would continue normal operations of its newspapers, magazines and online businesses without interruption during the debt-restructuring process.

"Philadelphia Newspapers' goal is to bring its debt in line with the realities of the current economic and business conditions," said Brian Tierney, chief executive officer.

"Over the last two years, we have made significant progress in improving the quality of our journalism, building a relationship based on mutual trust and respect with our unions, making our operations among the most efficient in the industry and innovatively serving our readers and advertisers.

"This restructuring is focused solely on our debt, not our operations. Our operations are sound and profitable. We are the medium of choice in this region for advertisers and readers.

In Harrisburg, scores of legislative staffers make more than lawmakers

Our friend John Micek at The Morning Call brings us a detailed account of the money our legislators spend on staff :
It's not often the average worker makes more than the boss, but in the Pennsylvania Legislature it happens all the time.

Seventy-three House and Senate staffers received more than $100,000 last year, well above the lawmaker base pay of $78,314, according to records obtained from the chief clerk's office in both chambers.

Legislative employees do everything from answer the phones at your local lawmaker's district office to shape the state budget and policy priorities that become state law.

Forty House employees made more than $100,000 in 2008 (the most recent year for which data was available), as did 33 in the Senate, the records show.

At a time the state faces a $2.3 billion budget deficit, the proposed elimination or reduction of scores of programs and the prospect of layoffs for hundreds of state employees, lawmakers and their top aides insist they're doing all they can to stretch the public's buck. They defend the salaries paid to top staffers as just compensation for invaluable experience and expertise.

Nonprofit organizations fear a proposed amendment to Philadelphia's tax regulations will allow the city to tax an array of activities that they have always assumed were exempt.

The city revenue commissioner said yesterday that proposed changes to the business-privilege tax regulations were being "misconstrued" and were not designed to generate new revenue.

Still, nonprofit experts said the proposed changes were broad enough to permit the city to tax universities for dorm fees, performing-arts theaters for concession-stand sales, and small community groups for fund-raising dinners.

The amendments, in practice, would require nonprofit groups to undertake bookkeeping and administrative changes that could be more costly than the taxes.

Superintendent Arlene Ackerman yesterday presented a sweeping, controversial vision for the Philadelphia School District's future that includes shutting down failing schools and potentially reopening them as charter schools, reducing class sizes, and overhauling teacher hiring.

Dubbed "Imagine 2014," the draft plan would cost $50 million over five years, officials estimate. After getting community input, the School Reform Commission must vote on a final version in April.

The plan represents the first major policy push for Ackerman, who has led the 167,000-student district for eight months and who later yesterday got into her first public dust up with the commission on an unrelated resolution. Despite the hefty price, her plan would give city students, half of whom do not finish high school, the bare minimum, she said.

Pennsylvania has run out of money for reimbursing local sewage agencies for most of the cost of permitting and inspecting septic systems.

The state Department of Environmental Protection said Wednesday that rising costs have already exhausted the $6 million that was available for reimbursements through June 30.

Acting DEP Secretary John Hanger says there are currently 95 pending applications seeking more than a half-million dollars.

Gov. Ed Rendell on Wednesday said he would consider expanding his proposed $550 million tuition relief plan to include state-related schools such as the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University.

The program he proposed would include assistance for as many as 170,000 low- and middle-income students who attend one of the 14 schools in the State System of Higher Education or one of the 14 community colleges.

"We would welcome that and think that it is appropriate to treat all public higher education institutes the same way," said Pitt spokesman John Fedele.

Rendell wants to pay for the program by legalizing video poker machines and taxing them at a rate of about 50 percent. An estimated 17,000 machines operate illegally in the state. The state imposes a 55 percent tax on slot machines at casinos.