A deserving pensioner

Here's a heartwarming story from Pennsylvania (H/T to the invaluable Kevin Binversie):

Former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky will likely receive his $58,898-a-year state pension while in prison, unless a bill stalled in Pennsylvania's senate finance committee is quickly passed by the legislature and signed by the governor.

The bill would prevent employees convicted of sexual offenses related to their jobs from receiving their state pensions, said Cameron Kline, a spokesperson for State Sen. Larry Farnese, D-Philadelphia, who introduced the bill before Sandusky was charged with sexually abusing boys in his Second Mile program.

"This was introduced on Oct. 18, 2011, well before Sandusky's crimes came to light," Kline said. "It's something we think would be very appropriate for a case such as this. Now that it's over, we're a little concerned, confused and angry it's still stuck there. Apparently it's not a priority so the legislation still stays in committee."

It's a good thing to note that the bill was introduced before Sandusky's crimes were known, because otherwise it would be an ex post facto bill and probably unconstitutional. But there is the nasty little matter of it being stuck in committee. Why would that be? Binversie wields Occam's Razor:

The obvi­ous ques­tion is some­thing along the lines of “Why didn’t this guy work to get his bill on the fast-track once the San­dusky trial started going?”  The law­maker him­self dropped the ball.  His lead­er­ship — which is Demo­c­ra­tic, which means it’s the bitch of the Penn­syl­va­nia pub­lic unions — let this bill die.

The description might be a bit pungent, but it's tough to argue otherwise. It is good news for Sandusky, who will likely need the money to buy lotsa cartons of smokes where he's headed.