Vince Fumo

For state Sen. Vince Fumo, it's time to play the waiting game.

The Philadelphia Democrat's massive corruption trial has been delayed yet again, this time for a month while the presiding judge recovers from an illness, The Inquirer reports.

U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr. sasid he had not yet recovered from what he has described as a virus. Yohn was noticeably sick lastweek during jury selection, The Inquirer reports.

Fumo is retiring from the First Senatorial District seat he has held for three decades to fight the 139-count federal indictment. Democrat Larry Farnese is running against underdog Republican Jack Morley to replace him.

PHILADELPHIA - On the basement wall of Vince Fumo's district office in South Philadelphia hangs a painting that could end up telling his story better than he would hope. It's the famous "Sword of Damocles" piece, depicting the GrState Sen. Vince Fumo: Official Photoeek legend who switched places with a king only to discover a sharp sword looming ominously above him.

"There's always a sword hanging just above you," Fumo said to PolitickerPA.com recently, with a smirk. "The more powerful you get, the bigger a target you become."

The irony is hardly lost on Fumo, the 30-year Democratic state senator and Philadelphia political icon. A massive federal corruption trial, "a cloud" in his words, looms above.

This morning, in James A. Bryne Federal Courthouse here, the lawyers will be picking a jury to determine the fate of Fumo, who faces 139 charges of charges of corruption, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. In an indictment that reads like a textbook on political largesse, Fumo is accused of defrauding taxpayers, a charity and a museum out of millions of dollars he used for personal and political gain, and then seeking to cover it up when authorities started poking around. Fumo has denied any wrongdoing, and in local political circles, what begins today is nothing less than the trial of a lifetime.

It also signals a changing of the guard, with Fumo already having said goodbye to the Senate in an emotional speech in July. Soon, the powerful 1st District, which stretches from the airport to the Delaware River waterfront and includes Center City, will have a new man in Harrisburg.
But it is a sign of senator's continuing power that his almost-certain successor, Democratic nominee Larry Farnese, owes much of his ascension to Fumo's support.

DENVER--With longtime state Sen. Vince Fumo (D-Philadelphia) set to retire from Harrisburg to fight corruption charges, the Democrats need a new party chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Fumo brought billions in state funding to Philadelphia as the ranking Democrat on the committee, but chatter inside and outside the Capitol makes it seem like the position will go to someone from elsewhere in the state.

"I hope not," state Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Philadeplhia), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, told PolitickerPa.com today.

Evans is not the first Philadelphia politician to lament the possibility that control over the money could leave the state's biggest city, nor will he be the last.

"Obvioulsy, I would love for it to be a Philadelphian," Evans said.

Still, he was hesitant to engage in speculation about who might take Fumo's place, for fear of angering his colleagues in the upper chamber.

"It's really an internal battle in the Senate," Evans said. 

DENVER--For months, former Philadelphia City Controller Joe Vignola was planning to run as an independent for the 1st Senatorial District seat long held by retiring and indicted state Sen. Vince Fumo (D-Philadelphia).

But when Fumo dropped out of what became a tightly-contested April primary that was taken by young Center City lawyer Larry Farnese, Vignola, a lifelong Democrat, decided not to run because it would cause trouble for the party's nominee.

With Democrats overwhelmingly outnumbering Republicans in the district, Republican Jack Morley is not expected to fare well in November.

During a cocktail party here Monday evening for the state delegation, Vignola expressed confidence in Farnese, but also some slight doubts.

"It's going to be a hard act to follow," Vignola said of replacing Fumo, who has held the seat for 30 years but faces a federal corruption trial in September. "The important thing is he has the intellectual ability to learn."

Democratic state Senate candidate Larry Farnese on Monday lambasted the state Supreme Court's recent ruling upholding two casinos' rights to contentious waterfront locations in Philadelphia.

In a statement, Farnese, who is running to replace longtime state Sen. Vince Fumo (D-Philadelphia) in the 1st Senatorial District,  said the court "has given away the store."

"While I recognize the benefits of properly developed casinos, I have long been a proponent of re-siting," Farnese said. "When I become your State Senator, I will continue to work to ensure that the voice of the neighborhoods most affected will continue to be heard."

Farnese faces Republican Jack Morley in November. 

Despite Paul Kanjorski's strong rapping performance Lou Barletta again has a good week with his race moving to a toss-up.  Find out who joins Barletta as a winner on this week's Winner's & Losers list.

In only 3 weeks, on September 8th state Senator Vince Fumo’s trial is scheduled to start. The closer the trial gets, the more bad news Fumo seems to receive. Mark Eister, a Camp Hill computer technician who worked for Fumo is expected to plead guilty on conspiracy to obstruct justice during the investigation of Fumo. This will make the third plea in as many weeks in the Fumo investigation.

Gov. Ed Rendell, U.S. Reps Bob Brady and Chaka Fattah, and even former 76ers coach Larry Brown are just some of the big names on state Sen. Vince Fumo's (D-Philadelphia) list of potential witnesses for his looming federal corruption trial.

The witness list, reported by The Inquirer and The Daily News, names 267 people who could potentially be called to testify at Fumo's trial, which now starts in less than a month.

Also headlining the defense witness list are Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll, and Philadelphia City Council President Anna Verna.

Fumo, the 30-year incumbent and Philadelphia political icon, is accused of improperly using Senate money and money from a charity he oversaw for personal and political gain. He has denied any wrongdoing, but decided not to run for reelection in the spring because of the indictment against.

Center City attorney Larry Farnese won a three-way Democratic primary battle to replace Fumo in April. He faces underdog Republican Jack Morley in November, and is widely expected to be the next state Senator in the 1st Senatorial District.

Sen. Vince Fumo may never go to trial if a report in the Inquirer today is correct.  According to the report prospective jurors will be asked how they feel about politicians.  If the defense is going to remove jurors who have negative feelings towards politicians how long will it take to find 12 who have a neutral opinion? 

For almost two years, Gov. Ed Rendell has worked against staunch neighborhood resistance to proposed casinos in Philadelphia. Even as some residents who once revered him as the city's mayor grew to loath him for his acceptance of the slot parlors planned for the Delaware River waterfront, Rendell has always sided with the casino developers.

When neighborhood activists continued to push the casinos to consider other sites further from residential areas, Rendell wrote to one that "the issue of re-siting is over." When City Council continued to cause delays, he sharply criticized local lawmakers as having "no guts."

But now that some of his staunchest Harrisburg allies from Philadelphia are lining up against him, Rendell appears to be bending, if not breaking, on the casino issue. On Friday, the man who championed casinos in Pennsylvania said "the political landscape has changed" and that he would meet with the casino developers to discuss moving the projects elsewhere.

Still, even as he signaled his first significant shift on casinos after long lauding their potential for proving tax relief, Rendell, a Democrat, sounded a note of caution.

"I'll meet and make a good-faith effort to explore the potential benefits of re-siting," he said, "but nobody should get too excited. The only way these casinos can be legally re-sited is if the casinos voluntarily agree."