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John DiPrimio will be hosting a program on WNPV 1440 AM on Monday May 12, 2008 from 11:10 AM to 12 noon. Call 215-855-8211, 215-723-2116 or 1-800-355-9678 to take part on the show. You can also here John on the web at www.wnpv1440.com 

National Survey Reveals Strong Opposition To North American Union

Starting Today...

Pennsylvania will launch a 30 day speeding ticket frenzy. The state estimates that 9 million dollars will be generated in speeding tickets. 1 million will go to pay state troopers' overtime. There will be 50 state troopers on duty at all times patrolling the 9 main intersections and highways. They are the following: 

5 mph above the limit can justify a ticket and every state trooper is supposed to pull a car over and write a ticket every 10 to 20 minutes. They have issued 30 brand new unmarked Dodge Charger Police cruisers and are bringing in all of their part timers on full time. If you work in western Pennsylvania, you will probably take one of these highways. It's up to you how fast you are going when they clock you.

KDKA and WDVE & CBS3 confirmed all of this. So be safe and don't forget speeding tickets are on you.

Driving Ticket fine increase in PA:

Starting on August 15th, the price of a ticket for violation of PA Law 39:3-29 (failure to show your driver's license, registration, or insurance card at the time you are stopped) is going from $44.00 to $173.00

Please make sure your vehicles have the proper documents in them. If you jump in the car to run to the store and forget your wallet with your license in it and you are stopped.... Oh well... you just spent $173. And the fine for not having all three documents is $519!!!

Make sure everyone knows about this!

Democracy Rising Pennsylvania

In This Edition

• Reality Check
• Legislative Leaders Won't Release Expense Reports

Reality Check
74 Days to Deadline for amending the Constitution for redistricting and banning lame-duck session
See the full April edition of "Reality Check" at the DR web site.

Legislative Leaders Won't Release Expense Reports
Thanks to DR's Penn State intern Claudia Vergara and two lawmakers for whom transparency is more than a sound bite, we now know that the House and Senate provide their members with individual spending reports every month. They are documents that even seasoned Capitol reporters did not know existed. They are documents that, to no one's surprise, House and Senate leaders have refused to release.

They're called "Summary Report of Voucher Activity." CLICK HERE for an example of a year-end report Vergara obtained from Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre, and HERE for four monthly reports from Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre. They list four different sources of funds for 16 different categories of lawmaker expenditures, including per diems. The funding sources are "Leadership Expenses" and "Chief Clerk Accounts" in addition to "Member Accounts." (The Member Accounts are standard stuff. Each lawmaker gets $20,000 a year for "Accountable Expenses" and $4,000 for "Postage.")

The Leadership and Chief Clerk funds are the most important, especially Leadership funds. This is where leaders use some of our $240 million surplus to reward (or purchase) the allegiance of lawmakers by giving their favorites extra money for such things as mailings, flags, office equipment, postage, business meals and "other services," which could include such things as polls and PSA's.

Harrisburg Patriot Capitol Bureau Chief Jan Murphy today reported on the accounts and the refusal of House and Senate leaders to release them, as well as about a few lawmakers who did release theirs. CLICK HERE to read her report.

Show Us How You Spent Our Money.
It's time for individual lawmakers to release this information. This is information about tax dollars that either they spent or that legislative leaders spent on their behalf. Nothing about it is even remotely confidential under either the current open records law or the new law. Nothing would have to be redacted. No Social Security numbers. No addresses. No "working drafts." No names of innocent parties. No policy considerations. The documents are already in electronic form and can be produced and transmitted almost instantly.

So ask for them. Do not let your Representative and Senator send you to the black holes known as the "Chief Clerk's" office for this information. In both the House and Senate, these offices exist as bureaucratic backstops that many lawmakers hide behind. It is your lawmakers' job to navigate their own bureaucracy on your behalf. The Chief Clerks' offices will respond to lawmakers about 10,000 times faster than they will respond to you.

What to Ask For
The reports are called "Summary Report of Voucher Activity."

• Ask specifically for the "Year to Date" report for "Session Year: 12/01/2006 - 11/30/2007" which lists "Vouchers Paid Through 11/30/2007."
• Ask also for the monthly reports beginning with December 2007.
• While you're at it, ask for the "Year to Date" reports for the past several years: December 1, 2005 through November 30, 2006; December 1, 2004 through November 30, 2005, and December 1, 2003 through November 30, 2004.

Please let us know which lawmakers provide or refuse to provide the information.

The First Test
The new open records law passed unanimously in both the House and Senate. Now we will learn whether they meant it.

If they refuse to release the information, a citizen has to go to Commonwealth Court - not a local court or administrative agency - and incur all of the expense and delay courts create. This is not an accidental feature of the new law.

Questions

• Will the ultimate release of this information reveal patterns of leadership and chief clerk spending to support lawmakers a) who have opponents in primary or general elections? b) who consistently vote according to the desires of leadership? c) who raise money for House and Senate campaign committees? d) all of the above?
• Why are there three different kinds of per diems?
• Why should citizens be confident that lawmakers can regulate themselves, as the new open records law allows them to do? How well have they done so far?

Best Practices
Although he doesn't post these monthly reports directly on his web site, Rep. Eugene DePasquale, D-York, comes very close. CLICK HERE to see the information he posts every three months. All that's missing are the accounts the money comes from.

What's on your lawmakers' web sites?