Attorney General Tom Corbett is the guy who had 10 state employees arrested, accusing them of doing campaign work on the public dime.

He’s also a politician seeking re-election, and some of his aides have worn two hats to help him win.

Corbett’s staffers insist they’re doing political work on their own time and their own dime. Reimbursement comes later from his campaign coffers, not from tax dollars.

Spending tax dollars on campaigns — the heart of the Bonusgate case — is illegal.

What Corbett is doing is commonplace, but it’s drawing extra attention because of his Bonusgate role. His campaign spent Monday explaining its process in response to a news account on his staffers’ dual roles.  read more »

Reverberations from Attorney General Tom Corbett’s prosecution of 12 current and former state House Democratic members and staffers hit the Capitol on Wednesday, and it sounded a lot like 2006.

Legislative hopefuls and longtime incumbents outlined different tacks to the same goal: clean up a culture of corruption that, at times, seems as much a part of the Capitol as its Italian marble.

A group of 17 Democratic House candidates unveiled the Pennsylvania Candidate Platform for Reform, or “PennCPR” — the CPR, of course, for “reviving ethics.” It calls for limiting perks, restraining lobbyist influence, and campaign finance reform.  read more »

Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, which as Pennsylvania Avenue notes, continues to be raising more questions than it answers, has apparently finally picked a state director to manage the day-to-day campaign in the state.

Craig Schirmer, a Californian with little if any Pennsylvania experience who was involved in Obama’s South Carolina, Wisconsin and North Carolina primary operations, will run the Pennsylvania campaign.

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, who is not exactly known for his short e-mails, sent a brief 478-word diatribe into the ethos over the holiday weekend.

Morganelli’s latest missive to the media accuses incumbent Attorney General Tom Corbett of using taxpayer dollars to promote his re-election.

We’re shocked.

Morganelli, the Democratic candidate for AG, says that Corbett has diverted “hundreds of thousands of dollars, and maybe even a million dollars” that was earmarked for fighting illegal gun trafficking in Philadelphia and southeastern Pennsylvania in a “blatant and unaccounted use of public money” to raise his name recognition.

Does anyone else find McCain’s comments more than slightly distasteful? He’s very directly telling these rich people “I’m running so you’ll get far richer.”

Sen. John McCain picked up $1.5 million for his campaign and the Republican Party during a cocktail reception Monday night in an air-conditioned tent on the grounds of a Bryn Mawr estate.

The GOP’s nominee-in-waiting also may have discovered a new housing policy.  read more »