EDITORIAL: Casino cronies

The Citizens' Voice, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
·2 min read

Mar. 4—Jake Corman, the Republican president pro tempore of the state Senate, must be a suspicious guy. Of the untold number of Pennsylvanians who have the experience, education and temperament to be members of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, he could find only one person whom, he says, he could trust with an appointment.

That confidence is in Frances Regan of York County, the wife of Republican state Sen. Mike Regan. She will be paid $145,000 a year, so Pennsylvanians will pay more than $250,000 a year for the Regans' combined public service.

Keeping the lucrative appointments in house is the sole matter on which Republicans and Democrats in Harrisburg seem to agree.

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf recently appointed to the board Democratic former Rep. Frank Dermody of Allegheny County, a Clarks Summit native who lost in November to Republican Rep. Carrie Lewis Del Rosso of Allegheny County, a Scranton native. Already on the board are Democratic former state Sen. Sean Logan and Republican former state Rep. Mark Mustio, both of Allegheny County.

According to an analysis by the state government-focused news organization SpotlightPA, 16 of the 31 gaming board members since its creation in 2004 have been former lawmakers, former legislative staffers or former state government administrators.

Regan replaces Merritt Reitzel, sister-in-law of the chief of staff for Corman's predecessor, former Sen. Joe Scarnati, who appointed her.

Upon leaving the board, she was hired as a lawyer for the Senate committee that oversees gambling matters.

State law, for obvious reasons, precludes appointing to the board anyone connected to the gambling industry. That should extend to the government, as well, the other side of the regulatory relationship.

Corman might want to feel comfortable with someone he can trust, but the objective should be to find people whom the public can trust, and that inherently excludes just about anyone tied to the Legislature.

Pennsylvania casinos collect $3.4 billion a year from gamblers, about a third of which goes to the state government.

The Gaming Control Board should be truly independent rather than a cushy landing spot for defeated politicians and political cronies.