Investigators working for state Attorney General Tom Corbett have produced evidence that paints a picture of political corruption and stunning arrogance in Harrisburg in a scandal known as Bonusgate.

The initial reports included allegations that Democrats in the state House of Representatives used legislative staffers to work on political campaigns of incumbents and Democratic challengers, which is illegal.

The Bonusgate name refers to the year-end bonuses paid to Democratic House staffers actively involved in campaign work. Top bonuses amounted to $20,000, and the largest bonuses went to staffers who were most active with campaign work. Again, the money paid to these people was taxpayer money, not what it should have been — campaign funds raised by the candidates themselves or the Democratic Party.

Following the announcements of indictments against former Rep. Mike Veon, a Democrat from Beaver; one sitting Democrat from Beaver; and 10 other staffers and former staffers, more details have come out.

Part of the campaign work, which House Democrats are charged with paying for with taxpayer dollars, was opposition research. As the name implies, opposition research involves digging up dirt on opponents. Such mudslinging is a turnoff to the public, but campaigns do it because it works.

In the case of the 2006 House races, e-mails reveal that a dozen or more House staffers were told to start digging up dirt — at state taxpayers' expense. One e-mail explained, "We are mainly looking for bad things: liens, bankruptcies, homicides ... you get the picture."

The headquarters for opposition research in 2005 reportedly was the Democratic Office of Legislative Research, which nearly a year ago was raided by state agents who removed about 20 boxes of opposition research material that, according to a Pittsburgh newspaper report, dated back 10 years or more.

Related to the opposition research, Democratic House staffers were used to challenge nominating petitions of opponents to incumbent Democrats. There also is evidence that as many as 50 Democratic staffers were used to challenge signatures on nominating petitions to knock Independent candidate Ralph Nader from the 2004 presidential ballot in Pennsylvania, because it was thought he would damage John Kerry's chances.

Last week, at a Harrisburg press conference, Nader called the Demo-crats' efforts to remove him from the ballot "one of the most fraudulent and deceitful exercises ever perpetrated on Pennsylvania voters."

He's right.

But House Democrats implicated in Bonusgate apparently didn't stop at illegal campaign work and dirty politics. In addition to opposition research, the House Democrats reportedly used taxpayer funds for their purely personal benefit.

State investigators allege that Veon paid staffers several thousand dollars of taxpayers' money to transport two of his motorcycles to Sturgis, S.D., so they would be waiting for him when he and his wife flew out for the big annual motorcycle event in August.

Another detail emerging from the initial Bonusgate indictments includes a description of a regular Tuesday night basketball game hosted by Veon and other Democrats. After the games, food orders for anything from pizza to sushi were taken, with the tab picked up by taxpayers — which over the course of several years amounted to $22,000.

And yet another, even-more-personal use of state funds was revealed in the Bonusgate probe. Prosecutors filed charges against Michael Manzo, the 39-year-old former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, for creating a state job for a young woman with whom he was having an affair. The former DeWeese staffer, whose 27-year-old wife was also indicted in the first round of Bonusgate charges, faces charges for his role in the bonus scandal as well as for creating a do-nothing job for his 22-year-old mistress, complete with an office in Pittsburgh's South Side neighborhood.

With the Bonusgate investigation continuing and more indictments expected, it's clear that within a group of Democratic House leaders and staffers, taxpayer money was seen as their money — to do with as they pleased. The partisan political work, including election campaigning and opposition research, was extensive. And the related use of state employees and state taxpayers' money for personal errands — and even a job-for-sex deal — reveals a mentality and a morality tainted by arrogance and entitlement.

And the arrogance and entitlement revealed in Bonusgate are the same characteristics that state lawmakers revealed in the infamous 2005 pay-raise vote and the related use of bogus expense vouchers.

Voters need to continue following the Bonusgate story, and allow the emerging details of illegal and immoral behavior to fuel an outrage that leads to a cleaning of the House — and of the Senate — of all those involved in this and other scandals.

Harrisburg's culture will not change until all those characterized by arrogance and a sense of entitlement, who are more interested in serving themselves than their constituents, are replaced with civil servants who understand their role and the meaning of integrity.