Rep. Brad Roae, a Republican serving parts of Erie and Crawford Counties, wants to end a program that lets state lawmakers use a state owned/leased vehicle.

Lawmakers can either apply for a state vehicle or get reimbursed for their gas mileage. Roae’s HB68 would end the state vehicle program.

 

A transcript of the interview is below:

 

KARA JEFFERS, STATE GOVERNMENT REPORTER: "Welcome to Harrisburg. I'm Kara Jeffers here with Representative Brad Roae. You have a bill that you want to discuss, tell me about House Bill 68.

REP. BRAD ROAE, R-CRAWFORD/ERIE: "Yeah. House Bill 68 would end the practice of legislators being able to receive a taxpayer funded state car."

JEFFERS: "Is this a problem? What’s, what's your experience with this?

ROAE: "Well, it is a problem because most legislators, probably 95% of them, receive mileage reimbursement. So they have to keep a separate system in place just for those few legislators [who use state owned vehicles]. And everyone agrees that state troopers need taxpayer funded cruisers to do their jobs. PennDOT workers need taxpayer funded dump trucks to do their jobs. Nobody believes that a legislator needs a state car to carry their briefcase around."

JEFFERS: "You said this used to be, like a bigger thing kind of back in the day."

ROAE: "Yeah, it used to be much more popular. When I first got elected, there were probably a hundred legislators that had a state owned vehicle. The last time I checked, there's probably only a dozen left. But that can change. Gas prices could go up, vehicle ownership could become more expensive, and people could start reverting back to using state owned vehicles."

JEFFERS: "So specifically, what does your legislation do?

ROAE: "Well, it just ends the practice. It says that legislators can no longer get a state car."

JEFFERS: "And then is there any tax benefit, tax cost, to our taxpayers?"

ROAE: "Yeah, there is. It's hard to calculate what it is. We had a legislator that had three separate at-fault crashes with her state owned vehicle. Now, imagine if that legislator would have caused a very serious accident, where a kid was crippled or somebody got killed or something like that. It would have been millions of dollars in liability. You know, lawsuits and things of that nature. And plus, it's expensive just to maintain a separate system just for a few people."

JEFFERS: "Is there any opposition to this? What's kind of the push back you get from others?"

ROAE: “Well, I've introduced this bill every two years for the last 12 years. I think I got it through the House a couple of times, but it never moved in the Senate. Because at one point, there are Republicans in the Senate that had state taxpayer funded cars. Last time I checked in the House, it's all Democrats that have taxpayer funded state cars.

"They usually send the bill to the state government committee, which I'm the Republican chair. But this session, the speaker sent it to the Labor and Industry Committee. So it looks like it's designed just to park the bill there for the rest of the session."

JEFFERS: "All right. Well, thank you, Representative, for your time today. And this has been kind of your breakdown of legislation that doesn't always get the spotlight."