tool to help recruit good candidates.

Hanley and/or Feese would assign DO staff to particular campaigns depending on the needs of the HRCC, often in a leadership role such as campaign manager or field staff director. "Just because we recruited some candidates didn't mean we necessarily served as their manager or helped every single one of them all the time." DO staff, as part of their legislative job, also would participate in candidate seminars, which occurred in late spring or in the summer after the primary election at least as early as 2002. The number of candidates in attendance varied from year to year:

Republican and sometimes they handpicked only 30 people to come in and we would spend two to three days at a certain location and talk about campaigns and what they needed to do and how they worked and how they could be targeted by the HRCC. A lot of times that is where Candidate Connect would come up.

F or the "handpicked" candidate seminars, such as several that occurred in 2004, DO staff were instructed to '''not discuss the candidate seminar, attendees with anyone else." DO staff taught various courses at these seminars, including fundraising and grass-roots organization. For example, the June 6-8, 2002 campaign seminar held at the Harrisburg Marriott hotel included Hanley speaking on "Campaign Plan", Shannon Royer on "Volunteers", Scott Migli on "Coalition/Direct Mail""and Daphne Uliana on "Election Day". All of the 2002 DO staff were listed on the preprinted agenda as from the "PA House Republican Caucus." The May 13-15, 2004 campaign seminar held at the Radisson Penn Harris hotel in Camp Hill included Hanley on "Elements of A Campaign Plan" and "Highlights of the HRCC Corsa Program" as well as copresenting "Maximizing Your Grassroots Efforts - Begin Now" with Shannon Royer, Allison

a Feese staffer who worked closely with AI Bowman, was assigned by Bowman as part of her legislative duties to create and provide user names and passwords for Candidate Connect.

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Coccia, and Daphne Uliana. 29 All of the staffers listed above were employed by DO at the time of their presentations. DO staffers would then work on the assigned campaign through the general election in November. The few DO staffers that were not assigned to work on campaigns were assigned to cover the work of those staffers assigned to campaigns. 3o Approximately 2-3 months before election day, most District Operations staffers assigned to a campaign became primarily dedicated to campaign work. "John Hanley along with the

they thought would be best where." Hanley and Feese also would determine whether or not a particular staffer would go on leave without pay and start splitting time between being paid by the HRC and the HRCC. If a split was to occur, Hanley would determine the percentage of the split (50/50, 75/25, or, rarely, entirely off the state payroll). Hanley, not the particular staffer, determined the leave-without-pay status. All
throu~h

PO

this period the DO staffers would be reporting on their campaign assignments

to Hanley, who in turn would report the status of the various campaigns to others, including members of Leadership and senior staffers. "The Chairman of HRCC ... was Brett Feese. So

29

There were other, one-day candidate seminars held on June 7, 2004 and July 15,2006. While

the presenters are not listed on the agendas for the seminars, the topics are exactly the same as those previously presented by DO staff.
30

The legitimate legislative work was easily covered by a small group of Regiona! Coordinators

while the others were assigned to campaigns. As one Regional Coordinator told the Grand Jury, "I think that if folks who work for district operations were to be really honest with themselves, they would recognize that the basic purpose of district operations, whether it's the Democratic or Republican Caucus, is to get Democrats or Republicans re-elected .... There are lots of ways that we do help constituents. But in my opinion, there is no justification for the size and the expense that is currently district operations."

165