Lawmaker wants expanded subpoena power to catch waste, fraud, abuse

By Andrew Staub / March 30, 2015 / No Comments

Print This Article By Andrew Staub | PA Independent

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A freshman state lawmaker wants to give the Pennsylvania House of Representatives more power by affording all standing committees and subcommittees subpoena power.

State Rep. Cris Dush, R-Jefferson, has proposed a change to House rules to allow committee chairmen to compel witness testimony to investigate waste, fraud and abuse within public bodies and public contracts. The committee could also put those testifying under oath.

State employees often know about abuse and want to expose it, Dush said, but fear retribution from their supervisors if they testify before lawmakers. The rule change would let them tell their bosses they have no choice to but to talk and tell the truth, Dush said.

Photo courtesy of Ballotpedia Photo courtesy of Ballotpedia TESTIFY: State Rep. Cris Dush believes expanded subpoena power would give the state House a tool to fight waste, fraud and abuse. “I just see this as a game-changer,” Dush said. “The Legislature’s been abrogating their responsibilities as a co-equal branch in holding the executive accountable for decades. This is going to be something that will restore us to a co-equal branch.”

Dush’s idea would build on limited subpoena powers already in place.

House rules allow the Appropriations Committee to issue subpoenas for witnesses or records “under the hand and seal” of its chairman. Committee members can also administer an oath to witnesses.

The Ethics Committee also can issue subpoenas during formal investigations, either through a majority vote of its members or by request of the individual under investigation, according to House rules.

Plus, the entire House can vote to grant any standing committee, subcommittee or select committee the power to hold hearings for the purposes of investigations. That also would include subpoena power, according to House rules.

Dush wants to automatically give all committees that power.

Steve Miskin, a spokesman for the House GOP, said subpoenas have not been used in the past 10 or 15 years.

“They haven’t needed it in recent times,” he said.

Common Cause Pennsylvania, a good-government group, doesn’t yet have an official position on Dush’s proposal, Executive Director Barry Kauffman said. He noted that it could come in handy, but it’s a “the-devil-is-in-the-details” idea that would need built-in safeguards to avoid having one lawmaker embark on a “crusade.”

“That is a very sticky wicket, as you would say,” Kauffman said.

In the wake of incidents such as the former state treasurer pleading guilty to trying to shake down campaign contributors, expanding subpoena power could be another tool for lawmakers to address government corruption and wrongdoing, said Nate Benefield, vice president of policy analysis for the Commonwealth Foundation, a free-market think tank.

“Whether this is the best solution to that, I don’t know, but it seems like it would be another arrow in the quiver to help give the Legislature a little more power and transparency over some of these things,” he said.

If anyone who is subpoenaed fails to appear to answers questions truthfully under oath, they could be subject to contempt or perjury charges under Dush’s proposal.

Dush has spoken with staffers who have said the threat of subpoena alone has been enough to compel people to appear in the past. But, the representative said, nobody would hold up the state budget to investigate a single item of waste, fraud and abuse through the Appropriations Committee.

“You don’t shut the whole government down for something like that,” he said.

Dush’s proposed rule change would rectify that, while allowing lawmakers to investigate anything from welfare fraud to departments that aren’t operating under proper policies, he said. It would also protect those testifying under the state’s whistleblower law.

“I have no doubt that there will be some that are irked about being forced to show up,” Dush said, “but by the same token … we have a lot of good public servants out there that are really frustrated, but they also don’t want to lose their jobs.”

Catch ‘waste, fraud and abuse’?

Why not just hire honest and qualified people INSTEAD of the creeps in office NOW? THEN implement the rules about accountability-because it’s obvious NO ONE is observing them now?

No additional or ‘expanded’ powers are needed. PERIOD!

I think we’re beyond the time allotted us to accomplish that ... I think it’s now time to be able to subpeona people that can then use the plausable excuse ... “They Made Me Do It”

Right....the culture is corrupted totally.

They can use the excuse the Nazi war criminals all tried...’I was following orders’.

People that ... wait ... PATRIOTS that want to do something good but are afraid because they might lose their job, should have legal protection from repercussion(s)

You nazi comparison is out of line

Sounds like you didn’t get what I said.

That happens a lot on this site lately.

‘splain it to me .. no offense .. but you obviously didn’t (mean to) say what I read.

Wait ... you were agreeing with me ... I owe you a beer.

want to cut waste and fraud? easy.

put up a bounty for every program started prior to 2014 that needed to be cut. offer a one-time reward of 10% of that program’s annual budget.

you can bet there’d be tens of millions of people pouring through the annual budget to find anything wasteful.

I LIKE that one.