Time for Pennsylvania to enact lawmaker gift ban

Sure, getting to New Zealand nowadays is a heck of a lot easier than it once was.
Go back 300 years or so, and it would take months to sail to the remote land that would one day give us commercial bungee jumping and the “Lord of the Rings” movies. It takes a lot less time today, but it’s still taxing, unless you count sitting in a cramped airline seat for hours on end as one of life’s joys, and it doesn’t come cheap – getting from here to there will set you back at least $2,000, and that’s not counting lodging and other expenses once you arrive.
State Rep. Eli Evankovich, a Westmoreland County Republican, was able to make it to New Zealand last year, thanks to his status as a Pennsylvania lawmaker.
How’s that? Well, Evankovich took a trip there with the nonprofit American Council of Young Political Leaders picking up the tab, which came to about $8,350 once lodging and transportation costs were tallied up. Evankovich told reporters for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Philadelphia Inquirer he took an interest in New Zealand because of the large number of immigrants flocking there and to see if there’s anything they’re doing that the Keystone State could copy.
He also explained it wasn’t a journey packed with sightseeing and shopping. “There was no room to breathe,” Evankovich said. “This wasn’t a leisurely trip.”
Relaxed or not, most of us would leap at the chance for an all-expenses jaunt to New Zealand and be grateful to the person or group bestowing this gift upon us. And that’s the problem. Pennsylvania lawmakers like Evankovich can legally accept all manner of gifts from friends, groups, anyone really, as long as they disclose it. It should be noted only includes gifts that are worth $250 or more, and transportation that is worth $650 or more, must be disclosed. Anything below that need not be revealed. Along with the salary, pension and other perks that come with being a Pennsylvania lawmaker, the goodies they can grab make it an undeniably sweet gig.
In an age of intense political polarization, the taking of gifts in Harrisburg has been a remarkably bipartisan preoccupation. Altogether, $145,000 in disclosed gifts were bestowed on state lawmakers in 2016. It should be noted neither state employees, nor employees of the executive branch, can take gifts. According to recent filings with the state Ethics Commission, state Rep. Angela Cruz, a Democrat from the Philadelphia area, traveled to Hawaii for a conference and made trips to Boston, Orlando, Fla., and Washington, D.C. State Attorney General Josh Shapiro was given tickets worth more than $2,000 for Philadelphia 76ers basketball games and a little more than $800 in tickets for Pittsburgh Penguins games.
Shapiro is among many state officials who have called for a ban on gifts, and it’s time he and his fellow public servants in Harrisburg lived up to their rhetoric. State Rep. Rick Saccone, the Elizabeth Republican whose district includes part of Washington County, has long championed the issue, but his tenacity has yet to show results. A bill that would prohibit state lawmakers from receiving gifts has been stalled in the House Government Committee, led by Daryl Metcalfe, a Butler County Republican. As one of only a handful of states that does limit gifts, it’s long, long overdue for legislators to vote on this and make it law.
Oh, and here’s a fact about New Zealand that Evankovich might have come across – it’s tied with Denmark as the least-corrupt nation in the world. And, it turns out, the country has much more stringent rules about lawmakers receiving gifts than we do.