Newspaper: Just do one job right

So much for Gov. Ed Rendell keeping his promise to devote his final year to reforming state government.

Just a couple of weeks after dubbing himself the "reform governor," Rendell showed his true nature: The master of the backroom deal.

Rendell wants state Rep. Mario Civera, who was elected to a new job as a Delaware County Council member in November and promised to resign his House seat, to stay in the Legislature and help work on next year's state budget.

Civera is the kind of career politician Rendell can work with and the gov wants to keep Civera around as the top Republican budget negotiator in the state House.

On the surface, that's an odd request considering the Legislature and Rendell missed the budget deadline by 101 days this year. If Civera is so good at negotiations, why didn't the state have a budget on time?

But there's an even bigger problem with politicians holding two jobs, argues The Philadelphia Inquirer.

From an editorial in today's edition:

Dual officeholding is a bad idea, even though experts disagree on whether it is unconstitutional in Pennsylvania.

New Jersey has eliminated the practice, with good reason. It forces elected leaders to serve two different constituencies, splits their workload, and divides their attention. It also can lead to abuses such as pension-padding and conflicts of interest.

Civera also said he would forgo his County Council salary for the time being, and take only his state salary of $105,000. But by virtue of Civera's trying to perform the duties of two jobs, state taxpayers will be getting something less out of him than they were getting previously.

Moonlighting in either job is unnecessary.

This is not a knock against the past performance of Civera, who gets good marks from colleagues in both parties. But nobody is irreplaceable, especially in the giant playpen known as the state capitol. Dual officeholding in Pennsylvania needs to end.

Read the full editorial at the newspaper's Web site.