....© 2000, Kimit A. Muston
I am worried about the state of politics in the state of California. Certainly in the past Sacramento has attracted a dizzying array of thieves, crooks, liars and the mentally deranged. But to look at the current crop of politicians you would think they were all related: they dress alike, sound alike and are disturbingly law abiding. How is anyone in California to find politicians worthy of complaining about?
The citizens of Pennsylvania, however, have been blessed with a crop of greed and stupidity that would warm a reformer's heart to the point of spontaneous combustion. At the center of the firestorm is a thread bare three seat Republican majority in the state Assembly and a Republican party determined to out-do Three Mile Island as Pennsylvania's primary disaster attraction.
First there was Rep. Frank Serafini,(R.-Lackawanna) who was convicted of lying to a federal grand jury. He was sentenced to five months in prison but that was almost a year ago and he has yet to see a set of bars. Assemblyman Serafini refused to give up his office until his legal appeals are completed, despite a clause in the state constitution forbidding anyone convicted of perjury from holding elective office.
Then there was Rep. Tracy Seyfert (R. Erie) whose trial was supposed to have begun in February. She was charged with lying to obtain a federal surplus 10-ton emergency generator. She needed it to keep her exotic birds warm. She has also been charged with witness tampering when she threatened Federal employees who were talking about the alleged theft. No clear date has yet been set for her trial to begin.
There is also Rep. Patrick Browne (R. Lehigh), who now has two convictions for drunk driving and Joseph Gladeck (R. Montgomery) who was arrested for slapping his girlfriend, and finally, state Senator William Slocum (R. Warren), who has been charged with dumping untreated sewage into a local trout stream for twelve years. He is also awaiting trial.
Now, the old rule is that when a political fire breaks out the leadership circles the wagons. And that is just what Majority leader John Perzel,(R.Philadelphia) did over and over again, until eventually the entire wagon train was smoldering. The final spark was delivered by one of the parties rising stars, four term Assemblyman Thomas Druce (R. Bucks County).
In mid-January of this year the 38 year old Assemblyman was charged with homicide by vehicle, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, insurance fraud, evidence tampering and four additional traffic violations. He thus became the first member of the legislature in the 316 year history of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to be charged with homicide. After his arraignment Assemblyman Druce was released without even meeting his $20,000 bail, and returned to work in the state capital.
It would be nice to say that hit-and-run homicide was the Rubicon for the Republican party in Pennsylvania; that the party might excuse dead trout, warm birds, drunk driving, slapped girlfriends and lies under oath but the death of a human being was beyond politics.
But at the same time it must be admitted that without the bloody battle of Gettysburg there would have been no Gettysburg Address. And faced with a series of disasters which might have sunk any other party in any other state, Majority Leader Perzel produced a form of damage control which can only be described as a work of art.
First, Perzel switched from defending Rep. Serafini in public to cajoling him in private. He convinced Serafini to finally resign his seat in late January, nine months after he was convicted. This avoided a special election in Serafini's district which the Republicans would probably have lost. Then Perzel convinced Tom Druce not to resign but rather to announce that he would not run for reelection in the April 4th. primary, allowing the party to nominate Katharine Watson, a Deputy County Administrator, for his seat. That is an election the Republicans think they can win.
And that victory is very important to Majority Leader Perzel because with Serafini gone and his seat empty, and Gladeck's seat up for grabs, and if Seyfert is convicted and forced to resign, the Republican party will still retain at least a 101-100 seat majority in the state Assembly.
And after all, isn't that what politics is all about?