Erie Times-News columnist trumps newsroom

It's revealing that a major statewide political story
with potentially profound local implications was broken
locally by a gossip columnist, and underscores the
ineptitude of the Erie Times-News's feeble news department.

Last week Ed (Mathews)Mead broke the news locally that the
prolonged investigation by the state attorney general
has spread from Democrat wrongdoers in the state
legislature to their Republican counterparts, as
promised earlier by the AG.

It comes as no surprise to Pennsylvanians in Pittsburgh,
Harrisburg, Philadelphia and elsewhere throughout the
Commonwealth, as their newspapers had been writing
about this new development several days earlier. But not
a peep from the Times-News until Ed's column last week.

A couple weeks ago I sent e-mails to the five legislators
from the Erie area - three Democrats and two Republicans
- asking them whether they would publicly call for House
Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, a Democrat of Greene County,
to step down from his post.

They are Pat Harkins, Flo Fabrizio, John Hornaman, Democrats;
Curt Sonney and John Evans, Republicans.
Already, ten Democrat legislators from downstate have
pubicly called for DeWeese to resign as majority leader.

While DeWeese is not one of the eight Democrats in the
legislature who have so far been indicted in the wake
of the investigation - with more apparently to come,
including Republicans - the corruption unearthed so
far came under his watch, and betrays, if nothing else,
a failure of leadership. That alone should trigger his
resignation.

It's also virtually inconceivable that DeWeese knew
nothing of the illegal goings-on over the past few
years that funneled more than $1 million of taxpayers'
funds to Democrat election campaigns,and corrupted the
state's electoral process, since it involved other
members of the House leadership, and it's possible
that he may also come under indictment as the
investigation proceeds.

But even if he doesn't - DeWeese is masterful at
covering his tracks - he should be thrown under
the bus by his legislative colleagues for allowing
these alleged crimes to occur under his leadership.

So far, I've received responses to my e-mails only
from one local Democrat and one Republican, Pat
Harkins and Curt Sonney respectively.

One can only surmise from the deafening silence on
the part of the other three that they don't want
to rock the boat because they fear they too may
become implicated as targets in Attorney General
Tom Corbett's deepening investigation. Why else
would they keep mum?