The UPMC Minute Lady & Baseball Tickets

And its no surprise that PA still needs some major ethics reform.  Yesterday’s Post-Gazette had a story about a Pittsburgh based lobbyist, Leslie Merrill McCombs,  being fined by the State Ethics Commission for lobbying Ed Rendell for Lionsgate Films.  (Film rep fined over lobbying of Rendell, Post-Gazette 9/9/09).  That name sounded familiar – McCombs is also the Lady who hosts those strange UPMC minute commercials that we have to watch, and she used to be a court reporter for the TV show Judge Mathis.  Her bio from the UPMC website:

Leslie Merrill McCombs is the senior consultant for Government Relations at UPMC. In her role, she provides strategic direction and positioning counsel in all aspects of government and public relations, as well as media. She’s also the host of UPMC Minute, and hosts the regional tourism show, Discover Pittsburgh 250, sponsored by UPMC Health Plan. She brings more than 18 years of television and news experience to her role. Before coming to UPMC, Leslie was the court reporter on Telepictures’ nationally syndicated court show, Judge Mathis, and was a news anchor in several television markets, including Pittsburgh’s FOX 53 News.

Also interesting – in 2007 – both McCombs and Rendell tried to diffuse this issue.  McCombs said it was a “technical non-compliance.”  See the 2007 WTAE story and Bob Mayo’s Blog post.

According to this blog post from 2008 – Mike Veon was also working for Lionsgate.

How did Hollywood qualify for the break? Lobbyists Leslie Merrill McCombs, a former Fox TV reporter in Pittsburgh, and Mike Veon, a once-powerful Democratic state representative from Beaver County, lobbied for it on behalf of Lionsgate, a leading independent film and TV production company based in Santa Monica, Calif.