Clout: Got corruption evidence? Corbett welcomes help
SOME RUMORS we can't let slide, even if we can't confirm them for weeks or months. Consider this tale we heard from Harrisburg two months ago:
SOME RUMORS we can't let slide, even if we can't confirm them for weeks or months. Consider this tale we heard from Harrisburg two months ago:
State Rep. John Galloway told the Bucks County Courier Times that state Attorney General Tom Corbett was "playing politics" with "Bonusgate" investigations into General Assembly money being used to pay for political campaigns. The Democrat from Levittown added that Corbett, a Republican, "was just scratching the surface" of Capitol corruption while not "indicting people who can help his run for governor."
That story ran on Feb. 2, the same day the state House Appropriations Committee held a hearing on Corbett's budget.
We're told Corbett and Galloway traded sharp words before the hearing. We also heard agents from Corbett's staff visited Galloway's Capitol office later that day, asking him to produce evidence of corruption that their investigation had missed.
We left several messages for Galloway and finally caught up with him this week. Galloway said that he has concerns about Corbett running the investigation while campaigning for governor but that his encounter was "much more mild and civil than the rumors" that circulated later.
He declined to comment about the visit from Corbett's agents.
"I really don't have a problem with Tom Corbett and I don't think he had a problem with me," Galloway told us.
Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley said that it was fine for legislators to disagree with his boss on investigations or politics but that Corbett's office takes it seriously when someone suggests he is missing evidence of corruption.
Harley said that supervisors had sent the agents to Galloway's office and that he didn't know if Corbett had been involved in that decision. He declined to comment on whether Galloway provided evidence on his claims of corruption.
Specter sizes up Supreme pick
With U.S. Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice John Paul Stevens considering retirement, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter is sizing up the field for replacements and his own role in the process.
Not that Specter is pushing for Stevens to go. He'd prefer to put off until next year a political battle over who replaces Stevens.
But Specter says he has his mind on diversity in case Stevens decides to step down this year.
That may not mean what you think it means. Specter told PhillyClout that the court has plenty of justices drawn from the ranks of the federal circuit courts. He'd like to see someone chosen from a different branch of government.
"I've got a senator in mind," Specter said this week. "I'm not going to identify him for you."
The Supreme Court is a great gig. And Specter could use a little goodwill from his Senate pals.
Specter, who lost his seniority when he switched from Republican to Democrat last year while running for a sixth term, is angling to regain his post in the center of any judicial action. He told the congressional newspaper The Hill this week he has a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to be the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Specter told Fox News Sunday that he would suggest a nominee to President Obama when the Phillies played the Washington Nationals Monday. That didn't happen, he told us later.
"He didn't ask me," Specter said. "And I let him lead the conversation. It's a little premature to talk about nominees since you don't have a vacancy."
Eubanks back on the bench?
Joyce Eubanks clearly wants to be a judge in Philadelphia. She's run in elections but hasn't made the cut. Gov. Rendell appointed her to a judgeship in 2008, but the voters rejected her bid for a 10-year term last year.
She didn't fail for lack of trying.
Eubanks got a court order on the day of the primary election from one of her judicial colleagues to stop the distribution of sample ballots in the 13th Ward that dropped her name. The sample ballots didn't say who had paid to have them printed. Then Eubanks drove around, handing out copies of the order and confiscating hundreds of sample ballots.
Rendell last week reappointed Eubanks, a longtime public defender who was a close ally of the late City Councilwoman Carol Campbell, to an open slot on the Court of Common Pleas.
That was apparently requested by another Campbell ally, U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, chairman of the Democratic City Committee.
Eubanks could not be reached for comment this week.
Eubanks and two other judicial appointees, Sean Kennedy and F. Michael Medway, must be approved by the state Senate. Hearings for the Judiciary Committee have not been scheduled.
Quotable:
"With that level of anonymity, anything is possible. This is clearly a race that is yet to be decided." - Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, noting that a majority of likely Democratic voters don't know whom they will support in the May 18 primary election for governor.
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