Fraud. Abuse of power. Misuse of public resources. Extortion. Bribery.

Pennsylvania politicians have a rap sheet that would make any hardened criminal proud. And former state Treasurer and one-time gubernatorial hopeful Rob McCord did nothing last week to dispel Pennsylvania's reputation for corruption.

Testifying in the bribery trial of Richard Ireland, an investment adviser, McCord admitted trading favors for campaign donations, painting a picture of a government in which he said it was routine to hear "governors and others" swap fundraising favors.

"I remember thinking, 'This is a weird business, because you say you lie down with dogs and get up with fleas,'" said McCord, who has pleaded guilty to two counts of extortion and is awaiting sentencing. The charges against Ireland were thrown out by a judge who said the prosecution had not made its case.

McCord was caught up in a federal investigation into public corruption that also led to charges against John Estey, a former high-level aide to Gov. Ed Rendell, and another former state treasurer, Barbara Hafer.

Those are just the latest in a long line of public corruption cases in Pennsylvania, some more memorable than others, including one that involved yet another state treasurer R. Budd Dwyer. He committed suicide at a news conference in 1987 after being convicted of accepting a $300,000 kickback for his re-election campaign from a contractor given a lucrative contract for tax-recovery work.

More recent cases include a marketing director of the state Liquor Control Board who admitted to a decade of accepting bribes and kickbacks, including golf outings, from liquor suppliers, and Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams who was recently indicted in what prosecutors say was a gifts-for-favors swap that occurred at the same time he was prosecuting some state lawmakers for similar misdeeds.

In between, Pennsylvanians have witnessed scores of other types of corruption cases arise involving state officials from both sides of the political aisle and all three state governmental branches including the leaks and lies of former Attorney General Kathleen Kane and the use of public resources for political purposes by former state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin, her state lawmaker sister Jane Orie, and two former House Speakers Bill DeWeese and John Perzel, among others.

It's rare for more than a few months to go by without some high-profile official in Pennsylvania making headlines for violating a law.

Muhlenberg College political science professor Chris Borick says Pennsylvania does have a higher level of corruption than most states no matter how you measure it.

"No matter how we measure this in political science and other disciplines, Pennsylvania does have a higher level of political corruption than most states," said Muhlenberg College political scientist Chris Borick. "We have some competitors - places like New Jersey, Louisiana, and Illinois are pretty proficient in their own corruption - but we are among the leaders in this dubious category. There's really no doubt about it."

Whether you look at on a per-capita basis or simply looking consider the sheer number of high-profile corruption cases that have run through the court system in recent years, Borick said it's obvious that "something is pretty wrong in our political system in terms of corruption."

Some blame it on lax rules that don't hold government officials accountable or lawmakers' failure to enact reform laws such as a ban on gifts or limits on campaign contributions. Though good government groups continue to seek such reforms, little progress has been made in the Legislature.

Gov. Tom Wolf took matters into his own hands when he took office in 2015. Through executive order, he imposed a gift ban on political appointees and state workers under his jurisdiction.

So did recently seated state Treasurer Joe Torsella who made an executive decision to end a practice that landed McCord and Hafer in trouble. He banned investment contracts with firms that paid a middleman a finder's fee for helping to obtain state business.

Some say the media plays a role in failing to expose what is at the root of public corruption. Some say the public is to blame for letting lawmakers take a pass on advancing stiffer anti-corruption measures. Others point to a lack of a cohesive focus on rooting out corruption by law enforcement.

But given the number of the public officials who have gotten caught in their criminal acts, Borick said, "you would hope that dissuades people and tries to erase the culture that's been here a bit."

Erasing corruption image

Pennsylvania is one of 11 states that imposes no restrictions on how much a donor can give to a candidate running for office either as an individual or through a political-action committee, according to Common Cause Pennsylvania.

Bob Warner, that organization's vice president for issues, said imposing limits coupled with public financing of campaigns would be an important step toward restoring accountability and integrity in Pennsylvania state government.

But the reason it hasn't happened despite decades of his group advocating for it is simple. He compares it to a nuclear arms race where neither political party wants to be the first to disarm.

"Historically, when the issue has come up of putting finance limits in place, the Republican leadership in Harrisburg will say we can't put limits on what donors can give unless you put similar limits on what unions can give to Democratic candidates," Warner said. "That's part of the dynamic that has undermined the prospects for reform."

On top of that, Barry Kauffman, the former longtime Common Cause Pennsylvania executive director and now volunteer, said keeping campaign contributions uncapped is beneficial to incumbent lawmakers. It scares off opponents when incumbents can more easily build their campaign war chests with contributions from individuals or groups who donate with the hope of getting some return on their investment.

"The game is clearly rigged to be an incumbent protection tool," Kauffman said.

It's not that bills haven't been introduced to impose limits or ban gifts or develop less partisan ways of drawing up legislative and congressional district boundaries. They just rarely ever get very far.

Senate State Government Committee Chairman Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon County, said that's because there are other issues competing for attention.

Senate State Government Committee Chairman Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon County, said he wants his committee to take on campaign finance but will do it in a deliberate fashion.

Campaign finance is a reform issue that he said his committee intends to deal with in due time. But modernizing procurement codes, redistricting, and election-related concerns are higher on its to-do list at this point, he said.

When the time comes, Folmer said he wants to tackle campaign finance reform in a deliberate fashion by holding hearings and trying to strike a balance between the varied interests, the constitution and rules of law.

"I don't want five people in a phone booth deciding what reform is," he said.

Attempts to reach House State Government Committee Chairman Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler County, for this story were unsuccessful on Wednesday.

While waiting for campaign finance to rise to the top of the legislative agenda, though, observers say lawmakers allow Pennsylvania to get one black eye after another from corruption cases.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III sharply criticized the state's campaign finance laws from the bench during the recent Ireland trial. But that likely won't cause lawmakers to act either, although Borick said that's an important voice to add to the chorus calling for change.

Even more influential would be pressure brought by the people.

"I think Pennsylvanians are sometimes resigned to the level of corruption that is part of the way we govern in the state and they certainly don't like it and they think it's a problem but also maybe they don't react with the urgency that you might expect," Borick said.

But if they looked at the cost of corruption through a price tag lens instead of an ethical one, he said it might resonate more with the public much the same way the legislative pay raise did in 2005.

A former prosecutor who handled corruption cases involving state officials at the attorney general's office said the waste of tax dollars that his successful prosecution of House Republican and Democratic leaders uncovered measures in the millions.

Frank Fina, former senior deputy attorney general, said his office's investigation into corruptive practices happening inside the Democratic caucus brought to light the $1.4 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses that had been paid to staffers for performing campaign work.

In the case of the Republican caucus, the attorney general's office investigators exposed a scheme that involved $10 million being spent on computer technology for the benefit of GOP political campaigns.

The amount spent on the investigation and prosecution in those cases paled in comparison to the money that was saved by putting a stop to the wrongdoing.

"It wasn't even close," Fina said.

The tide may be turning in terms of public engagement on this issue. In addition to Common Cause Pennsylvania and other government reform groups, some new voices are coming on the scene.

There's a coalition of groups called Fair Districts PA who are combining forces to urge lawmakers to enact redistricting reform.

Citizen activist Emmie DiCicco said an all-volunteer non-partisan group called March on Harrisburg that she is involved with, is meeting with state lawmakers to urge them to support automatic voter registration whenever a person has interaction with a government agency, redistricting reform, and gift ban limits.

Her group chose to rally its initial efforts around those reforms because they have enjoyed bi-partisan legislative support in the past but never made it into law. She has a theory on why that is.

"I think there hasn't been enough of a reason for legislators to care," DiCicco said. "Legislators think no one is paying attention and they can get away with it. I think the more you shed light on it, embarrass them, and push them is when you see reform."

Michael Johnston, a Colgate University political scientist professor emeritus who co-authored a report from a Corruption in America survey, said the media has a role in all this as well.

He said when a story breaks, the media's coverage focuses too much on the individual involved and reaction to their misdeeds more so than going into depth and looking at the system that allowed the criminal acts to occur.

"The trouble is those kinds of stories are expensive to write and report and they don't get the readership and viewership that personality stories do," he said.

The general response to those kind of stories or ones about the political process that led to corruption is similar to listening to someone complain about their bad back, Johnston said. "You'd rather not be bothered with it."

Enforcing the law

Prosecutors say their efforts to crack down on corruption have been hampered by state and federal court decisions gutting anti-corruption laws as well as lax laws on the books.

In the recent Ireland trial, the judge threw out all the charges against the investment adviser saying the government failed to show there was an explicit quid pro quo agreement between Ireland and McCord, which the law requires.

Former state prosecutor Frank Fina said state and federal court decisions gutting anti-corruption laws as well as lax laws on the books hinder efforts to prosecute cases.

"It's increasingly difficult. It's not impossible to prosecute these cases but it's hard," Fina said.

Peter Smith, a retired federal prosecutor, agreed the situation for prosecuting corruption cases isn't good.

"Something has to be done with either state or federal law to correct what I think is a terrible hole allowing all types of corruption to take place. Not that all campaigns are corrupt or all lobbying is corrupt but it leaves the door wide open for abuses," said Smith, who noted he was recused from the Ireland case and was only speaking in general terms about corruption.

Fina came at it a little differently. He said he doesn't believe new laws need to be enacted but more clarity to the ones on the books would help.

Along with that, he said, is a need for enforcement.

"Right now in Pennsylvania, you don't have any dedicated entity looking at public corruption. It's very haphazard," he said.

Having a public corruption unit inside the attorney general's office as was the case when he worked there did set an example for county district attorneys to take on corruption investigations.

"Once we got some successes under our belt, it certainly provided a great resource for DA offices," Fina said. "They started contacting us. They started handling some cases. It definitely set a standard and created an expertise that was available to DAs."

Fina boasts that his unit successfully prosecuted more than 50 public officials - including police chiefs, township supervisors, district judges and two House speakers - and had all the charges held up on appeal except for one of the 11 charges against former House Democratic whip Mike Veon.

Taking on public corruption cases "can be done and done successfully but it takes a helluva lot of effort and it takes a helluva lot of fortitude and you have to have people covering your back," he said.

"As prosecutors, when you enter into the political process, whether it's to prosecute people or investigate people for whatever reason, they retaliate. There's no two ways about it."

Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a statement to PennLive that his office won't back off from taking on public corruption cases.

"As I said in January when I was sworn in, we must not allow ourselves to become accustomed to corruption, and we will investigate it, root it out, and hold officials accountable - without fear or favor," he said. "I'm asking the Legislature and the governor for $510,000 in additional resources to strengthen our fight against public corruption and help clean up the system."

When he was a member of the state House, Shapiro supported several government reforms including changes to the state's campaign finance laws.

Borick, the Muhlenberg College political science professor, agrees enforcement is part of the solution to remedying Pennsylvania's reputation as a corrupt state.

"It really hasn't been as robust as you might expect given the level of corruption we've seen here," he said. As a result, "it probably has given those who are willing to skirt the law some belief that they'll survive."