Fayette Searchlight

In 2007, State Rep. Tim Mahoney was interviewed by PassOpenRecordsPA which uploaded a YouTube video on October 2, 2007.

Here is but one pertinent TubeChop of the video.



FS recommends viewing the video in its entirety.  See the full video here:  Tim Mahoney Interview 20071002.

Toward the end of the video Rep, Mahoney says, "People will know who is getting the dollar down to the last penny."

However, here in 2016, that promise remains unfulfilled.  Rep. Mahoney does not post actual expenditures online so that they may be compared to his snout-in-the-trough policy of taking the full $168.00/day per diem on top of his $85,339 annual salary, benefits, retirement, expense reimbursements, etc.

After more than nine years in office, maybe Rep. Tim Mahoney should take his own advice to be accountable for every penny.  After all, should not taxpayers know whether they funded his trip to Pittsburgh on 02/28/2008 to testify for the release of a twice-convicted, violent, drug felon on illegal possession of firearm charges?

• Rep. Mahoney's bill did not pass; then-Sen. Dominic Pileggi's SB 1 became the new Open Records law.
• E-mails are not defined as legislative records under the law; one cannot see legislative e-mails.
• In the wake of the Pay Raise Scandal of 2005, a grassroots movement for openness of the Legislature caught fire. However, the Right-To-Know law (RTKL) carves out the Legislature and the Judiciary -- only 19 highly specific records are defined as legislative records under the law, and only financial records can be obtained from the Judiciary.
• The presumption of openness does not apply to the Legislature.  For example, when one makes a record request to the Chief Clerk of the House (fox guarding the henhouse) -- not the Office of Open Records because the law sets up an entirely separate system for requests of Legislative records versus Commonwealth agency and Local agency records (appeals of which requests go through the Office of Open Records) -- there is no presumption the record is open.  The Chief Clerk first determines whether the record requested meets the definition of a legislative record.  If the Chief Clerk determines the record does not meet one of the 19 categories of legislative records, the request is denied.  Appeals of denials of requests for legislative records do not go through the Office of Open Records.  Akin to the internal records request process, the law establishes an internal appeals process (more foxes guarding the henhouse).  If denied on appeal, one must appeal to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.  One can be sanctioned, if in the court's determination one has brought a frivolous appeal of a records request (i.e., more fox-guarding-henhouse barriers to transparency in state government).