2006 Pennsylvania General Assembly bonus controversy

In 2007, Pennsylvania Attorney General Republican Tom Corbett began investigating $3.8 million in public bonuses which were paid to state legislative staffers in the Pennsylvania General Assembly to work on party politics and campaigns. While the bonuses themselves are not illegal, state law forbids state employees from performing campaign work while on the job and forbids payment for campaign work out of taxpayer funds.

Pennsylvania media referred to this scandal as "bonusgate." Originally the investigation centered on Democratic and Republican Caucuses (top state committees of each party) in each of the state's two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Democrats dominated the investigate in the highly (at that time) Democratic state.

As the investigation continued other areas of concern arose, including findings of judicial corruption, nepotism, conflict of interest and Republican corruption in a subsidiary investigation dubbed COMPUTERGATE by the press, in which Republicans used state monies to pay state employees to develop computer programs to find and target Republican voters.

Still later investigations discovered the Kids for cash scandal in 2008 which judges in Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, were paid kickbacks to ensure juveniles were sent to for-profit facilities.

There was also a skimming operation in which two not-for-profit organizations in Beaver County, PA called Beaver Investment for Growth (BIG), had funds skimmed to fund political campaigns.

This was followed by disciplinary action against politicians who sent or received raunchy, racist and misogynistic emails called PORNGATE.

In 2014 still more bribery was discovered in the Pennsylvania Attorney General Sting.

Bonuses to staffers were awarded by the four legislative caucuses in the Pennsylvania General Assembly with House Democrats handing out $2.3 million, House Republicans - $919,000, Senate Democrats - $41,000 and Senate Republicans $366,000.

The investigation's early focus on the House Democratic caucus and Attorney General Corbett's 2010 gubernatorial aspirations have led to charges from that the investigation may be politically motivated.

Eighty of the 100 Democratic House staffers who were awarded bonuses in 2006 either donated money to or worked on the campaigns of Leader Bill DeWeese or his Whip, former Rep. Mike Veon.

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