PITTSBURGH -- Pennsylvania's state Legislature continues its string of bad news that started with the midnight pay raise fiasco several years ago.

After that, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency debacle, then the indictments in Bonusgate, and last week, the conviction of Sen. Vince Fumo on corruption charges.

A Team 4 investigation finds many of our full-time legislators in Harrisburg get outside income from private interests -- and sometimes, those interests can conflict with the public's.

Remember, we pay our state lawmakers a minimum of almost $80,000 each to represent us full-time -- but our Team 4 investigation found a majority of lawmakers report income from at least one other source.

And in reading through this annual financial interest statement for each state lawmaker, we also discovered something else: More than one-third of state senators and a quarter of House members sit on legislative committees that oversee the industries from which those same lawmakers reported receiving income, owning stock or serving on a board of directors.

Critics say that's a conflict of interest. But there's no law against it.

Below, you can read Jim Parsons' Team 4 investigative report.

Also, scroll down to the end of the story for related links, including the Statement of Financial Interests for the Senate and the House, as well as the Common Cause plan for reform.

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Like many of his colleagues in Harrisburg, State Representative Ted Harhai has private financial interests. He's an investor in PFBC-EET, which is headquartered in the same Monessen building where Harhai's district office is located. In fact, PFBC-EET's president, Doug Farnham, also owns the building, so he's Harhai's landlord, with taxpayers picking up the rent of 19-thousand dollars a year for the district office. In a 2007 interview with Team 4, Farnham praised Harhai for helping to obtain public financing to develop the building.

Parsons, from 2007: "How helpful has Ted Harhai been?"

Farnham, from 2007: "Sen. Stout, Rep. Harhai, amazing help."

And while Harhai is an investor in a coal industry company, he also this year became chairman of the House Subcommittee on Mining.

Parsons: "Jim Parsons from Channel 4, let me ask you a quick question."

Harhai: "No questions."

Harhai refused to answer our questions on camera, even though we called him first to ask for an appointment.

Team 4 also asked Rep. Nick Kotik for an on-camera interview about his paid position on the board of directors at the William Penn Association on the North Side. It's a fraternal organization that sells life insurance and annuities to its members. Kotik happens to sit on the House Insurance Committee.

When Kotik refused Team 4's request for an on-camera interview, we showed up at a public meeting of the Allegheny County Airport Authority, where Kotik is a board member.

Parsons: "How can taxpayers expect you to represent their interests with the insurance industry when the insurance industry is paying you to represent theirs?"

Kotik, D-Coraopolis: "Oh, that's not -- let's do this after. I've got to get into a meeting."

Parsons: "Well, I've already asked you for an interview. You said no. That's why I'm here."

Kotik: "I have to go in for a meeting now."

Kotik never did answer our questions on camera.

Not every lawmaker ducked us about a potential conflict of interest. State Sen. Wayne Fontana is a licensed real estate broker and also sits on the Senate Urban and Housing Committee, which passes laws affecting the real estate industry.

Fontana, D-Brookline/Beechview: "I feel like I bring some expertise to that, when it comes to legislation and those kinds of things, and I can be an advocate for landlords or tenants or whatever the case may be because I understand."

Tim Potts, Democracy Rising PA: "You can call professionals in. You can ask professionals to lend you their expertise. You don't have to have it yourself, especially not when it creates that kind of potential for abuse."

Barry Kauffman, Common Cause: "The public has a right to -- and ought to have an interest in -- what those relationships are, and how the game is being played."

Some examples of how the game is played -- and remember, it's all perfectly legal:

• Bucks County Sen. Robert Wonderling sits on the Game and Fisheries Committee and lists himself as a paid employee of a company that landed a software contract with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
• Uniontown Rep. Tim Mahoney opened a new district office last month in Chalk Hill, Fayette County. Rent checks are going to one of the men Mahoney lists as a business partner in his annual statement of financial interest. Mahoney tells Team 4 the company was recently disbanded.
• For years, taxpayers have been sending rent checks for Lackawanna County Sen. Robert Mellow's district office to a company owned by his wife. But Mellow never reported that until he got a divorce and assumed 50 percent ownership in the company. He didn't have to report it under the state's ethics law.
• Rep. Mark Longietti sits on the House Local Government Committee and also is solicitor for Delaware Township, Mercer County, which applied for and received a state grant last year.
• Lancaster County Sen. Michael Brubaker is owner of Team Ag, a company that advises agricultural firms about government regulations. Brubaker also is Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
• Mechanicsburg Rep. Glen Grell lists himself as an attorney of counsel with Buchanan Ingersoll Rooney, a law firm with no fewer than 35 registered lobbyists in Harrisburg. There's no law against that either, even though Rep. John Maher tried and failed last month to get it outlawed.

Rep John Maher, R-Upper St. Clair: "If I can't force the House to do the simple thing of saying that legislators should not be paid by lobbyists, how much hope is there for any further progress?"

We spoke by phone with Sen. Rob Wonderling. He says he didn't know his employer, Bentley Systems, landed a contract with the state.

Grell tells us by phone that he is no longer employed by Buchanan Ingersoll.

Kotik told us by phone he doesn't believe he has even an appearance of a conflict of interest because of his outside income.

Fontana reported on his SFI that he owns the building in Beechview where his district office is located. Team 4 checked with the Senate clerk's office and learned that Fontana is not charging the state any rent for that office.

• Related Press Release: Common Cause 12-Point Plan For Ethics Reform

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Statements of Financial Interest (Excel files)

Read The SFIs For: Senate | House Of Representatives

DISCLAIMER: All information on the Excel charts is from 2007, which is the most recent Statement of Financial Interest report on file required for each legislator. To ensure that we're comparing apples to apples, we made sure that all of the committee assignment information is also from 2007.

The responses posted on the Excel files correspond with the questions below:

Block 8 REAL ESTATE INTERESTS: This block contains the address of any property which was involved in transactions (leasing, purchasing, or condemnation proceedings of real estate interests) with the Commonwealth or any other governmental body within the Commonwealth. If you have no direct or indirect interests in such a property, then check "NONE."

Block 10 DIRECT OR INDIRECT SOURCES OF INCOME: List the name and address of each source of $1,300 or more of gross income regardless of whether such income is received solely by you or jointly by you and another individual such as a spouse. "Income" includes any money or thing of value received or to be received as a claim on future services or in recognition of services rendered in the past, whether in the form of a payment, fee, salary, expense, allowance, forbearance, forgiveness, interest, dividend, royalty, rent, capital gain, reward, severance payment, proceeds from the sale of a financial interest in a corporation, professional corporation, partnership or other entity resulting from termination/withdrawal therefrom upon assumption of public office or employment or any other form of recompense or combination thereof. The term refers to gross income; it includes prize winnings and tax-exempt income but does not include gifts, governmentally mandated payments or benefits, retirement, pension or annuity payments funded totally by contributions of the public official or employee, or miscellaneous, incidental income of minor dependent children. If you did not receive ANY reportable income, check "NONE."

Block 11 GIFTS: For each source of gift(s) valued at $250 or more in the aggregate, list the following information: the name and address of the source; the circumstances, including a description, of each gift; and the value of the gift(s). Do not report political contributions otherwise reportable as required by law, gift(s) from friends or family members (although the term "friend" does not include a registered lobbyist or employee of a registered lobbyist), or any commercially reasonable loan made in the ordinary course of business. If you did not receive any reportable gift, then check "NONE."

Block 12 TRANSPORTATION, LODGING, OR HOSPITALITY EXPENSES: NOTE: Per amendments to the Ethics Act effective 1/1/07, the threshold for disclosure in Block 12 has changed. For forms due to be filed in 2007 or thereafter, the following instructions apply. List the name and address of each source and the amount of each payment/reimbursement by the source for transportation, lodging or hospitality that you received in connection with your public position if the aggregate amount of such payments/reimbursements by the source exceeds $650 for the calendar year for which you are reporting. Do not report reimbursements made by a governmental body or by an organization/association of public officials/employees of political subdivisions that you serve in an official capacity. If you do not have any reportable expense payments/reimbursements, then check "NONE."

Block 13 OFFICE, DIRECTORSHIP OR EMPLOYMENT IN ANY BUSINESS ENTITY: List any office that you hold (for example, President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer), any directorship that you hold (through service on a governing board such as a board of directors), and any employment that you have in any capacity whatsoever, as to any business entity. This block focuses solely on your status as an officer, director or employee, regardless of income.

Block 14 FINANCIAL INTERESTS: List the name and address and interest held in any business for profit of which you own more than 5% of the equity or more than 5% of the assets of economic interest in indebtedness. If you do not have any such financial interest to report, then check "NONE."

Click here to see the actual SFI form.

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