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Power: Corkscrewed!
Booze czar Jonathan Newman miraculously made state stores customer-friendly, then quit in a snit when Governor Rendell undermined him by appointing a political hack as CEO. That’s how Newman saw it, anyway
By Benjamin Wallace
- Illustration by Serge Bloch
ON THE AFTERNOON of Saturday, December 9th, Tom Goldsmith was attending the Pennsylvania Society, the clubby annual gathering in New York City of Commonwealth pols and their hangers-on, when he heard a rumor from two state legislators. Goldsmith, who sits on the three-member state Liquor Control Board, quickly thumbed a BlackBerry message to the board’s chairman, Jonathan Newman, who was also attending the weekend. Had Newman heard the rumor conveyed by Goldsmith, the portly and genial former mayor of Easton — that Governor Ed Rendell was about to name recently retired senator Joe Conti to the newly created position of CEO at the LCB?
Newman, too, had heard the rumor, only his version had Conti running the LCB. “I was dumbfounded,” Newman says. “I’d just been appointed to a second four-year term as chairman. Before the election, Governor Rendell’s stump speech was very complimentary to me. I had no idea what anyone was talking about.”
Over the next month and a half, Pennsylvanians watched as what appeared to be a grand if depressingly familiar injustice transpired. For decades, the LCB had been an impersonal monopoly with the paradoxical purpose of both selling and regulating wine and spirits. To the state, it was a cash cow, throwing off $85 million last year to the general fund and another $250 million-plus in taxes. To consumers and restaurants, it was one of the banes of life in this state, with its drab stores, indifferent employees, limited wine offerings and criminal markups. Under Newman, almost miraculously, things had started to change, and his tenure as chairman had become that rare government story the citizenry could feel good about: Mr. Smith Goes to Harrisburg! Change Agent Fights Good Fight Against Loathed and Recalcitrant Bureaucracy! Glasnost, Pennsylvania-Style!
And now, under cover of night — or of legislative recess, at least — the politicians were giving their crony pal, a retired state senator best known for his support of the infamous lawmakers’ pay raise, a make-work $150,000-a-year job that would displace the brave maverick who single-handedly seemed to be making a difference. But Newman wasn’t going down without a fight! He went public, and spoke truth to power. There were Senate hearings, and the daily press almost unanimously portrayed l’affaire Newman as a stark fable. “Rendell rams through new job for pay-jacker” … “Politics as usual? Seems like it for Ed” … “Same Old Song and Dance” … “Chateau Rendell? It Smells.”
And so it went. Newman resigned. Conti took office. Wine drinkers were left to wonder if the transition marked the end of an era, and the start of a Vladimir Putin-style regression to the bad old days. And that would have been that, except that the colleagues Newman left behind were mystified by his actions. While his public statements accompanying his resignation suggested he had been a reformer done in by the usual reactionary forces, the proximate cause of his departure was the long-overdue creation of a position designed to bring the LCB up-to-date. “I didn’t think the hiring of a CEO would inflame anybody,” says P.J. Stapleton, who replaced Newman as chairman. “It was patently clear to virtually all of us that the organization of the bureaucracy was dysfunctional.”
Events had played out tidily in the public eye — Newman, good; Rendell, bad — but the fable, it turns out, wasn’t so simple.
Newman, too, had heard the rumor, only his version had Conti running the LCB. “I was dumbfounded,” Newman says. “I’d just been appointed to a second four-year term as chairman. Before the election, Governor Rendell’s stump speech was very complimentary to me. I had no idea what anyone was talking about.”
Over the next month and a half, Pennsylvanians watched as what appeared to be a grand if depressingly familiar injustice transpired. For decades, the LCB had been an impersonal monopoly with the paradoxical purpose of both selling and regulating wine and spirits. To the state, it was a cash cow, throwing off $85 million last year to the general fund and another $250 million-plus in taxes. To consumers and restaurants, it was one of the banes of life in this state, with its drab stores, indifferent employees, limited wine offerings and criminal markups. Under Newman, almost miraculously, things had started to change, and his tenure as chairman had become that rare government story the citizenry could feel good about: Mr. Smith Goes to Harrisburg! Change Agent Fights Good Fight Against Loathed and Recalcitrant Bureaucracy! Glasnost, Pennsylvania-Style!
And now, under cover of night — or of legislative recess, at least — the politicians were giving their crony pal, a retired state senator best known for his support of the infamous lawmakers’ pay raise, a make-work $150,000-a-year job that would displace the brave maverick who single-handedly seemed to be making a difference. But Newman wasn’t going down without a fight! He went public, and spoke truth to power. There were Senate hearings, and the daily press almost unanimously portrayed l’affaire Newman as a stark fable. “Rendell rams through new job for pay-jacker” … “Politics as usual? Seems like it for Ed” … “Same Old Song and Dance” … “Chateau Rendell? It Smells.”
And so it went. Newman resigned. Conti took office. Wine drinkers were left to wonder if the transition marked the end of an era, and the start of a Vladimir Putin-style regression to the bad old days. And that would have been that, except that the colleagues Newman left behind were mystified by his actions. While his public statements accompanying his resignation suggested he had been a reformer done in by the usual reactionary forces, the proximate cause of his departure was the long-overdue creation of a position designed to bring the LCB up-to-date. “I didn’t think the hiring of a CEO would inflame anybody,” says P.J. Stapleton, who replaced Newman as chairman. “It was patently clear to virtually all of us that the organization of the bureaucracy was dysfunctional.”
Events had played out tidily in the public eye — Newman, good; Rendell, bad — but the fable, it turns out, wasn’t so simple.
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