These things are given for one specific purpose - to create a preferred working relationship. When it comes time to get access, they want legislators to be their friends.

Everything a commission might do has already been done before. Therefore, it is highly improbable that it could discover or propose anything not already discussed at length in public. And it could serve only to further impede this long overdue legislation.

They demonstrate patterns of behavior that have become standard operating procedure for denying Pennsylvania citizens their right to participate in their government.

It's clearly not an appropriate way to conduct the public's business. The public can't evaluate if the government is doing a good job in the selection process if it only knows the winner.

A firestorm of protest is sweeping the state. We have to keep this pay raise issue alive for another 14 months.

Without the oversight of an unaffected and relatively neutral tribunal, the verdict in this case will always be in question, and opportunities to clean up the legislative and judicial processes in Pennsylvania will be lost.