20070218 Inquirer a Tangled Web at Statehouse

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Page 1A tangled Web at state House; GOP campaign material was improperly stored on aPa. government Web site funded by taxpayers. The Philadelphia Inquirer February18, 2007 Sunday1 of 2 DOCUMENTSCopyright 2007 Philadelphia Newspapers, LLCAll Rights ReservedThe Philadelphia InquirerFebruary 18, 2007 Sunday

SECTION:

PHILADELPHIA; Pg. B03

LENGTH:

661 words

HEADLINE:

A tangled Web at state House;GOP campaign material was improperly stored on a Pa. government Web site fundedby taxpayers.

BYLINE:

Mario F. Cattabiani, Inquirer Staff Writer

BODY:

In the blue corner, Ed "Fatcat" Rendell, his gut spilling over his boxingtrunks. In the red corner, a cut State Rep. John Perzel, muscles rippling.As the theme from

Rocky

plays, Perzel - former speaker of the state House -pummels the flailing governor, who gnaws a hoagie between rounds as he signs abill raising taxes.Perzel makes quick work of Rendell - a metaphoric triumph over higher taxes.

It's animated political humor, posted online in the style popularized duringrecent elections by such sites as JibJab.com.But it wasn't on JibJab. It was parked online by the state House RepublicanCaucus, on a Web site funded by tax dollars.So, too, were other campaign materials: photos of Perzel going door to doorin his Northeast Philadelphia district, and a 20-minute video tribute narratedby his wife, Sheryl. There was even a 487-page primer on how to run legislativecampaigns, produced by the Republican National Committee.Within an hour after The Inquirer began asking about the material Friday,House Republicans purged it from their computer network.Steve Miskin, press secretary to House Minority Leader Sam Smith (R., Jeffer-son), said Republicans were investigating the matter, preparing a memo to allstaff, and rewriting the employee handbook to bar such use of state computers."It's wrong. It should not have happened, and it should never happen," Miskinsaid Friday.The head of a nonpartisan watchdog group agreed. "There is supposed to be avery clear and bright line between political activity and state governmentactivity," said Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause ofPennsylvania, who laughed out loud when he watched the animated boxing match."This has clearly crossed the line."The animation and the other campaign material were not accessible to the pub-lic unless the Web address was known. The site is used only by a select fewHouse GOP Web designers - on state salaries - to store material, Miskin said.Even so, he said, "that doesn't make it right." He added, "Those responsiblewill be dealt with appropriately."Perzel knew nothing about what was on the Web site, said his spokesman, Mar-tin O'Rourke."It's improper, and he supports the effort to make it crystal-clear that this

Page 3A tangled Web at state House; GOP campaign material was improperly stored on aPa. government Web site funded by taxpayers. The Philadelphia Inquirer February18, 2007 Sundaytype of thing is wrong," O'Rourke said.Perzel was ousted as speaker in January after Democrats won the House major-ity in the the fall election. The House GOP later gave him the ceremonial titleof speaker emeritus.The site containing the campaign-related material was registered and paid forwith state money by the House Republican Caucus. Edmond McKenna, a House GOP Webeditor in Harrisburg, registered the site in 2004, records show.It was unclear who had created the Perzel-vs.-Rendell cartoon or what its in-tended use had been.McKenna said Friday that a Web-hosting company in Beverly Hills, Calif., un-der contract with House Republicans might have mistakenly placed the material onthe site."As far as I know, it may have just been file misplacement," said McKenna,who declined to comment further.Kate Philips, Rendell's press secretary, called the cartoon "bush league.""Wrong doesn't begin to describe it," Philips said. (Rendell shatters a scaleduring the fight's weigh-in.) "It was disrespectful, distasteful and, frankly, alittle dumb."It's not the first time House Republicans have faced questions about use ofstate computers.Last year, Russ Diamond, founder of PaCleanSweep, a group formed in responseto the 2005 pay raise, sued a House GOP staffer for defamation.The suit alleged that the staffer, Bob Nye, had created an online parodyequating Diamond with former Enron chief Kenneth Lay. Nye acknowledged the sitewas his, but said he had done it entirely on his home computer. A federal judgedismissed the case in October.To see the animation depicting State Rep. John Perzel and

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