Hm… using GOP leadership account money on investigations. Sounds like a way to avoid making public the true use of those funds (remember, we rarely find out how that leadership money is used). Why not just use the State Goverment Committee funds to conduct the investigation?

Gov. Ed Rendell says public money shouldn’t be spent on a private eye to investigate a lobbyist’s failure to register before pushing for a tax credit for film companies this summer.

Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, said the Senate’s State Government Committee, which he chairs, plans to hire an investigator to examine the actions of lobbyist Leslie M. McCombs and Lionsgate, a Santa Monica, Calif., film company for which she lobbied in June and July.

“We need to find out who did what for whom and when,” Mr. Piccola said yesterday. “We may have to plug some loopholes or inadequacies in the lobbying law. We want to be able to tell the public we have a law that works.”

He plans to contract with a Pennsylvania firm that employs ex-state troopers and ex-FBI agents. He’ll reveal the name by the end of the week when he signs the contract. The cost, which he didn’t think would exceed $10,000, will come from a Senate Republican leadership account.