Houck Finances Come Up During Debate

In Pennsylvania, public officials must annually file something known as a Statement of Financial Interests (SFI). During Tuesday night's NorCo DA debate, Steve Baratta repeatedly ripped Terry Houck because his SFI reports that he received income from the Kline & Specter law firm. 

"You didn't tell us about Kline Specter," complained Baratta. "Why not? How do you believe that you're allowed to earn income when the statute creating the position of District Attorney says you cannot have any clients, you cannot take on any cases and you cannot have a private practice. So how do you get paid from Kline Specter?

Fair question. 

Houck agreed he is unable to do outside work as District Attorney and derided Baratta for "waving the form, ... but he's got nothing."

Then why is Kline Specter listed as a source of income? Houck never really answered that question, and I received questions after the debate from several audience members who wanted a better explanation. 

Houck told me that over a decade ago, long before he was District Attorney, he was contacted by a friend whose wife contracted mesothelioma.  He suggested the Kline Specter firm and thought that was the end of it. He never even spoke to the firm. Last year, he received a check. He duly reported it and committed no ethical or legal violation because the payment was for a referral made long before Houck became Northampton County's District Attorney. To be sure, he consulted with the State Ethics Commission. 

"The State Ethics Commission was spoken with regarding whether it is an Ethics Code/statute violation for a lawyer referral fee to have been paid by a law firm to an elected District Attorney during his/her tenure in public office for a case referral made some 12 years prior to being elected.

"The person spoken with consulted with a staff ethics attorney and reported that it would not be an ethics violation since the District Attorney, while serving in his capacity as an elected official, performed no work for or on behalf of the law firm in the subject case nor had any involvement in the actual case itself during the period of time he was an elected official subject to the restrictions of the statute on elected fulltime district attorneys having outside employment.

"Since the referral was made and completed long before the District Attorney was elected and became subject to the statute's restrictions on outside employment by a fulltime elected District Attorney, and the District Attorney had no involvement with the case, its outcome or the law firm during the period when the District Attorney was in elected office and subject to the statute, there is no ethics statute violation because there was no prohibited employment of the District Attorney while he was serving as an elected official. "

Thus, the income he properly reported as such is the result of something he did long before he was ever elected as District Attorney. He never violated the prohibition on outside legal work by the full-time District Attorney, took on no cases and had no private practice.  Moreover, that's what the Ethics Commission told him.