Pending trial ends Fumo tenure

HARRISBURG -- Sen. Vincent Fumo, for decades one of the most powerful state legislators known for his forceful personality and artful deal-making, said Wednesday he won't seek re-election because of his pending trial on corruption charges.

The Philadelphia Democrat, heading to trial in September and recovering from a heart attack, said he would finish his term through the end of November at Gov. Ed Rendell's request. Three people are seeking his seat in the April primary.

Fumo, 64, in office for 30 years, said he would retire not because of his March 2 heart attack, but because "I simply don't think it is right for me to ask the voters ... to consider voting for me one more time while there is a cloud hanging over my head."

Prosecutors allege Fumo defrauded the state Senate, a seaport museum and a nonprofit by using their staff and assets for his personal and political needs. He maintains his innocence.

Rendell, who stood beside Fumo as he announced his decision, thanked Fumo for his public service.

"We're all complex people. No one is 100 percent good, and no one is 100 percent bad," Rendell said. "The balance tips greatly toward the great work Vince Fumo has done."

Fumo's retirement will create a power vacuum in the Senate Democratic Caucus, and it's not clear who will fill the leadership void. But among those likely to rise in leadership position are Sens. Jay Costa of Forest Hills, John Wozniak of Johnstown, or Philadelphians Anthony Williams and Vincent Hughes, political watchers said.

With Fumo's departure, there won't be a need to "distinguish between the formal and informal (political) leader," said Christopher Borick, political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown.

Political science professor G. Terry Madonna, of Franklin & Marshall College, said Fumo was "the Donald Trump of legislative deal-making" -- the type of politician who comes along only once every few generations.

"Regardless of how the court matter turns out, there's no doubt he wore himself out living in the fast lane of politics," said Anthony May, a Harrisburg communications specialist who has known Fumo since 1970.

Fumo often "started out knowing he was going to compromise," May said. "By knowing he would compromise in the end, he would get a better deal than someone who would go for broke."

A complex figure -- supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union and member of the National Rifle Association, for example -- Fumo is a lawyer, former banker and owner of many businesses and properties. He holds licenses to pilot airplanes and boats.

He can be urbane and charming, and yet sometimes crude -- such as the time during a 2004 debate over the slots law when he called then-Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer a "faggot." In 1993, he got into a shoving contest with Jubelirer, an Altoona Republican, on the Senate floor.

Lawmakers said Fumo's word was his bond. He grew to be "widely respected for his ability to get things done ... and he was feared," said Thomas Baldino, political science professor at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre.

Among his critics are Matthew Brouillette, president of the Commonwealth Foundation, who believes "everything that's wrong with state government somehow has a Fumo connection."

That list, according to Brouillette, begins with the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, where Fumo served on the board; the patronage-laden Pennsylvania Turnpike, where Fumo long exerted behind-the-scenes influence; the 2004 casino law Fumo engineered; and Act 44, the controversial highway and transit funding plan worked out in Fumo's office last summer.

"There isn't a single important piece of legislation that Vince Fumo didn't have his tentacles in," said Brouillette.

But Fumo's colleague, Senate Minority Leader Bob Mellow, a Lackawanna County Democrat, puts Fumo's legislative activism in a different light, calling him a "game-changer."

"Senator Fumo battled for an increase in the minimum wage, equity in school funding, property and wage tax relief, and fashioned a reasonable and balanced gun control law," Mellow said.

By intellect, the force of his personality and understanding of the art of the deal, Fumo helped forge most major deals in the Legislature, particularly state budgets. He was Democratic chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

After a 15-day budget impasse in July, it was Fumo -- though serving in the Senate's minority party -- who announced to The Associated Press that a budget deal had been reached.

"For me, as a newer member, he was a wealth of knowledge and expertise," said Sen. Wayne Fontana, D-Brookline. "Even as a senior member, his door was always open to me. You could stop him in the hall, go to his office; he was there.

"He was straight with you. He told you how things were."