You certainly can't say they don't care about you.
"Pa. legislative corruption trial begins for 3 GOP defendants; Defense lawyers blame former House speaker" September 27, 2011|By Peter Jackson, Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Top Republicans in the state House of Representatives used millions of dollars in public funds, employees, and equipment to compile databases of information about state voters to boost GOP campaigns, prosecutors said yesterday as the corruption trial of three former officials opened.
The trial “is about powerful people taking the public’s money and using it to expand and enhance their campaigns,’’ Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina told the Dauphin County jury of six men and six women in his opening statement.
Defense lawyers said their clients are innocent. They said responsibility for any wrongdoing rests with John Perzel, former House speaker, and his top aides, including three former House staffers who were granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for cooperating with investigators from the state attorney general’s office.
See: Pennsylvania Politics
Fina identified Perzel as the moving force behind an alleged scheme that initially tapped tax-paid computer specialists in the House GOP caucus.
The scheme eventually widened to including the hiring - mostly at public expense - of out-of-state consultants to develop customized computer programs and provide data about voters’ political preferences and lifestyles, Fina said....
What, asking them ain't good enough?
A Washington-area company called the Weiss Micromarketing Group sought to analyze voters by scrutinizing such habits as their magazine subscriptions and favorite supermarkets. Based on that information, they were assigned to lifestyle groups with names like “The Affluentials,’’ “Urban Cores,’’ and “Country Comfort,’’ Fina said.
Did YOU KNOW YOU WERE BEING SPIED ON, dear Pennsylvanian?
Thankfully there are Democrats for whom you can vote:
In a separate corruption case in US District Court in Philadelphia, prosecutors said yesterday they will push for at least a 15-year sentence when Vincent Fumo, former Pennsylvania state senator, who had been a wealthy Democratic power broker during his 30-year state Senate career....
--more--"
