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Major elements of Common Cause/PA’s long-standing government reform agenda came into play today when Gov. Wolf announced at a Pittsburgh press conference that he is pressing for sweeping reforms.

The natural gas industry has pumped nearly $50 million into Pennsylvania lobbying and political campaigns since 2007, according to a new report released today by Common Cause Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania's law allowing voters to register online is an important step toward boosting voter turnout, but the state has more work to do to encourage registration and give voters more options on where they cast their ballots, Common Cause says in a report released today.

Since the mid-1980s employees of state and local governments in Pennsylvania have been protected from intimidation and retaliation by the Pennsylvania Whistleblower law. Government workers who reported waste, fraud and abuse were protected from losing their jobs as long as they acted in good faith. But employees of the legislature and employees of government contractors were not granted similar protection until the Pennsylvania legislature passed HB-118 and HB-185 yesterday.

“Moving clean government laws is never easy in the Pennsylvania legislature, but these are four easy pieces of basic reform – truly the low hanging fruit in a large orchard of overdue government reforms” said Common Cause Pennsylvania Executive Director Barry Kauffman. With the current legislative session nearly three-quarters completed, and despite ethics scandals rocking the capitol with troubling frequency, the General Assembly still has not passed any significant laws this session to clean up Pennsylvania government.

Pennsylvania remains one of only ten states that does not limit or ban lobbyists and other special interest advocates from bestowing gifts, entertainment, travel and hospitality perks on legislators and/or other public officials. In testimony before the House State Government Committee today, Common Cause Pennsylvani called on the committee to tighten up and expand upon a bill that is designed to increase disclosure of gifts to public officials in Pennsylvania.