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New Ad Says Katie McGinty Rigged System for Personal Gain

$3 million ad buy hits Pennsylvania Dem for use of revolving door

May 26, 2016

A new $3 million ad buy in Pennsylvania will hit Democratic Senate candidate Katie McGinty for taking a high paying board seat from a company that she helped as a state public official.

The ad, Whose Job, comes from conservative group Freedom Partners and says that as secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection McGinty steered millions of dollars to companies that would later hand her six-figure salaries.

"Katie McGinty steered millions of dollars in subsidies to favored companies, and then took a six-figure job on the board of one of those companies as soon as she left office," said Freedom Partners spokesman Bill Riggs. "She put her own self-interests before taxpayers and got ahead at Pennsylvania’s expense."

"Hardworking taxpayers deserve a senator who will take on special interests, not someone who knows how to rig the system for their own personal gain," said Riggs.

McGinty has been criticized for her quick move into the private sector following her resignation from DEP. Within a year of her departure, McGinty was already on the board of directors for two major energy companies doing business in Pennsylvania.

One of those companies, Spain-based Iberdrola, was paying McGinty $125,000 annually, according to financial disclosure forms. Many of the Iberdrola projects that DEP helped fund during McGinty's tenure wound up being failures and the company wound up laying off hundreds of workers.

The Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this year that McGinty had met with top executives at Iberdrola in her final months in public office. She also took action to assist the company by the urging then-governor Ed Rendell (D.) to help Iberdrola move its operations into New York.

A local NPR affiliate in Pennsylvania that tracks the movement of energy officials from the public to the private sector highlights McGinty as one of the worst offenders.