When she’s not serving in the Pennsylvania House, State Rep. Marla Brown is teaching 13 fitness classes a week at the local YMCA.
From cycling to core strength to high intensity hit lessons, the pressure of the state legislature transformed the Lawrence County Republican’s former fitness hobby into another job, squeezed in the morning, in the evening and on weekends between political commitments.
“It keeps my mind healthy and active and engaged,” said Brown (R., Lawrence). “I think that’s vitally important in any career, and especially in politics where there’s so much negativity.”
More than half of the General Assembly reports an outside business interest or alternative forms of income, according to an analysis of all 251 state lawmakers’ statements of financial interest by The Inquirer. They moonlight as attorneys, company executives, property managers, farmers, and other roles when they’re not in session.
Local government reform advocates say public officials are inevitably influenced by the money they make on the side. Advocates from Rock the Capital and MarchOnHarrisburg have pushed for changes to moonlighting law, calling for bans on what they consider to be conflicts of interest.
While there are few restrictions to private employment for legislators across the country, the majority of states don’t allow their legislators to work secondary jobs in the public sector, like government or public school positions. New York imposes a cap on earnings from legislators’ outside earned income. Pennsylvania hasn’t pursued any sanctions or caps on outside employment, public or private. Not all state legislators earning outside income are making working wages — more than 40 lawmakers earn passive income as landlords.
Because the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission requires elected officials to report their businesses regardless of their earnings, it is difficult to say how many legislators are truly making significant profits on the side.
State Sen. Jarrett Coleman (R., Lehigh) is an airline captain for JetBlue Airways. State Rep. Kathleen Tomlinson (R., Bucks) is a funeral director. State Sen. Jimmy Dillon (D., Philadelphia) runs a children’s basketball academy. State Rep. Dan Williams (D., Chester) is the senior pastor of New Life in Christ Fellowship in Coatesville.
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Pennsylvania is the third highest-paid legislature in the country with a $106,000 annual salary for lawmakers. California and New York legislators make more, but reform advocates say Pennsylvania’s $181 per diem and other benefits likely push the state’s lawmakers to the top in terms of overall compensation.
With six-figure compensation, Pennsylvania lawmakers are much better off than the average state legislator in the country making $43,494 annually (New Hampshire lawmakers are the lowest-paid at just $100 a year).
Even so, the Pennsylvania General Assembly gathers fewer than 50 days a year, giving some members time to partake in personal endeavors, which has raised ethical concerns among advocates.
“You either work for the people or you work for yourself,” said Michael Pollack, executive director of MarchOnHarrisburg, one of the groups pushing for reforms.
Here’s what state legislators do in their free time, according to their 2023 Statements of Financial Interest.
Pennsylvania legislator side hustles
State legislators play a big part in making housing and rent law, but Pennsylvania has no rules limiting or banning legislators from acting as landlords, or in any career appealing to them.
At least 40 state legislators earn income from rental properties or property management businesses across the Commonwealth. Another nine legislators work as executives for property insurance and realty companies.
Of those serving in the state House and Senate’s housing committees, at least 11 legislators report income from rental properties or realty companies last year. These committees vote on legislation directly affecting renters, including amendments to Pennsylvania’s Landlord and Tenant Act.
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Not all landlord legislators rent out properties to their constituents, though.
Sen. Frank Farry (R., Bucks), the majority chair of the Senate Urban Affairs & Housing committee, quadruples as a senator, attorney, fire chief, and rental property owner. Rather than traveling to and from the Capitol, he owns a Harrisburg rowhouse that he shares with other legislators during session. He also leases his former home to his in-laws in Langhorne.
When his daughter moved to Pittsburgh, rather than moving into the newly flipped house he made for her, Rep. Jim Rigby (who DJs for friends and family) decided to rent the property out to local medical students. He says he has yet to break even on the cost.
Attorneys make up another large chunk of the bucket, with more than 15% of the General Assembly working for law firms. Lawyers have a long-held tradition of dominating American politics, and the story is no different in Pennsylvania.
Farry, an attorney with Begley, Carlin & Mandio, said he hasn’t set foot in a courtroom in years, but he still gives legal advice over the phone and never from his state Senate office.
“There needs to be boundaries between my legal job and my Senate job,” Farry said, uncertain that others in the state legislature adhere to the same separations.
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The ethics of attorneys-turned-lawmakers working for outside legal clients has been scrutinized for years. Legislators actively practicing could, in theory, meddle in laws affecting their clients, a worry of good government advocates.
Sen. Gene Yaw (R., Lycoming) moonlights as an attorney for Williamsport-based McCormick Law Firm, which represents gas companies and practices environmental law. Yaw is the majority chair of the state Senate Environmental Resources & Energy committee.
His firm also has represented Pace-O-Matic, the Georgia-based company dominating the skill games industry. In May, Yaw introduced the Skill Video Gaming Act, which would regulate and tax skill games in the commonwealth. Miele Manufacturing, which produces the systems for Pace-O-Matic in Pennsylvania, occupies Yaw’s district. Yaw did not return requests for comment.
Pollack, MarchOnHarrisburg’s executive director, said Yaw’s legal side job is “absolutely ridiculous and corrupt as can be” and called for legislators to choose a side of the fence.
Reform advocates say jobs in law, property management, and big business can create conflicts of interest for legislators.
But lawmakers’ business interests aren’t confined to those industries. Eight lawmakers work in agriculture. Several others work in health, education, and the Pennsylvania National Guard. Personal businesses range from lake resorts to custom gunsmiths to farm animal pregnancy testing.
“If you have two skis, and both skis are going in different directions, it’s hard to stay focused,” said Rock the Capital founder Eric Epstein, an advocate for reform.
Questions remain about Pennsylvania lawmakers’ business interests
Even if they’re not active in the company, Mary J. Fox, the executive director of the state Ethics Commission, said filers must report their businesses “whether they make money or not.”
This means that legislators who own businesses that haven’t operated in years still must claim the job, making it unclear at times whether lawmakers are active employees.
Rep. Michael Schlossberg (D., Lehigh) still must claim his iPhone trivia game company and author website, despite not earning income from either in years. Rep. Perry Warren (D., Bucks), a former ice cream truck driver in Long Beach Island, still claims his business Ice Cream and Dreams despite his last truck being sold in 2017.
While some lawmakers continue operations as usual, others leave their co-owners, usually spouses, to continue the business while they serve or shut down their work altogether.
“When I ran for office and got elected, my wife told everybody she fired me because I stopped showing up for work,” said Sen. Timothy Kearney (D., Delaware), the co-owner of architectural firm Cueto-Kearney Architects.
Lawmakers do not have to report how much they make from their businesses or rental properties, even if they are actively employed. It is unclear how much any legislator is making outside of the General Assembly.
“Is it a million dollars? Is it a thousand dollars? We’d like to know,” Pollack said.
Lawmakers who take up other fields say the quality of their legislative work depends on their time spent in public service elsewhere.
“It’s really a way to stay grounded in reality. One of the problems with being an elected official is you don’t stay connected with what’s going on in the real world,” said Rep. Arvind Venkat (D., Allegheny), an emergency physician working weekend night shifts from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Farry says firefighting helped him understand his role as the chair of the Fire and Emergency Caucus when he served in the House, even as his staff called him crazy for working 70 hours a week.
“It was more important to be there and help out, in my mind,” Farry said. “I’ll make up the sleep at some point.”
Sarah Nicell is an intern with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents Association. They can be reached at snicell@inquirer.com.
