Interesting bit of local political history served up by Capitolwire.com’s Pete DeCoursey today. Most of you will remember the roles played in 2000 and 2001 by Scott Brubaker (left), then-chairman of Lancaster County’s Democratic committee, and Chet Beiler (right), then-chairman of the county’s Republican committee, in the kerfuffle called Votergate. Beiler was charged in April 2001 with violating a section of the Pennsylvania Election Code that forbids paying workers a commission for every new voter they register. The charge stemmed from the GOP’s “Operation 3,000″ voter registration plan, in which the party paid volunteers $4 for every new voter they registered before the 2000 presidential election. The charge, a misdemeanor, was later dismissed, after Beiler performed community service under the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program. Brubaker was the guy who got the ball rolling by filing a complaint at the county courthouse. At the time, Brubaker called on Beiler to quit his post. “If this were me, I would feel an obligation to resign. He shamed himself and he shamed his party. He thinks he’s a victim. I don’t,” Brubaker was quoted as saying.

Anyway. Here we are seven years later. And Brubaker, who has since moved from the county, finds himself on the receiving end. The former state House Democratic personnel director was one of seven top aides ousted last fall when House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese said the “Bonusgate” probe made their “continued employment untenable.” DeCoursey writes today: “Brubaker and other House aides and others are awaiting the outcome of Attorney General Tom Corbett’s Bonusgate investigation into nearly $4 million in legislative caucus staff bonuses in 2005 and 2006. $1.9 million of that amount was paid just to House Democratic staffers in 2006, as and after they won back control of the House. State investigators found Brubaker wrote e-mails, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, in 2004 which appeared to discuss rewarding other staffers with taxpayer-funded bonuses for campaign work. That is illegal under state law.”

DeCoursey quotes one House Democrat as saying: “If Beiler is supposed to be ashamed, what is Scott supposed to be feeling right now?”

“We’ll see if Chet really learned anything from Votergate. It sure looks like Scott didn’t.”

Beiler is said to be running for state auditor general. When he tried a run for that office in 2004, Beiler told us that focus groups he empaneled found his role in Votergate not to be a “crippling problem” in his campaign.

From our December 2003 story:

A majority of voters in two separate focus groups empaneled Thursday night said they would vote for Beiler despite his involvement in an illegal voter-registration program.

The findings, outlined by the Beiler camp today, bolster the Penn Township businessman’s campaign and his effort to win endorsement from the Pennsylvania Republican Committee next month. The election is in 2004.

“We have concrete evidence that it is not a crippling problem, that Pennsylvania voters apparently are sophisticated enough to look into a matter and see the character of the candidate,” Beiler said.

…

Beiler, who is six months into his campaign to become the state’s top fiscal watchdog, paid respected Republican pollster Neil Newhouse to set up the two focus groups.

“I wanted to, at this early juncture, get a realistic appraisal of how this will play out in a broader campaign,” Beiler said of the voter-registration controversy.

“I’m not interested in spending the next year of my life, and the serious sums of money required, if there is no hope for victory,” Beiler said. “With last night’s results, we’re more encouraged than ever that if we can get our story out - and that will cost money - then we can win.”

Both focus groups consisted of 10 people. One was made up of “soft Republicans” - those who have a tendency to vote for Democrats sometimes - and the other, independents and Democrats. The voters live in the Philadelphia suburbs of Delaware and Montgomery counties.

A facilitator asked each participant to rate, on a scale of one to 10, how inclined they would be to vote for Beiler.

Initially, without knowing about the voter-registration controversy, eight of the 20 indicated they would vote for Beiler. Six indicated they would not, and six more were undecided.

However, after the facilitator explained the details of the election code violation - along with Beiler’s apologies - the candidate won more support.

Eleven indicated they would vote for him, five said they would not, three were undecided and one abstained.

“It’s so encouraging - I just could hardly believe that that was the response we got from these average voters from the Main Line, many of whom were not even Republicans,” Beiler said.

The voters were even handed a negative attack ad against Beiler prepared specially for the focus groups.

“It portrayed our mistake in the poorest possible light,” Beiler said. “They handed that out to everyone, and he explained the facts surrounding it. And immediately, in both groups, they wanted to know two things: Did Mr. Beiler know that it was wrong to pay per-piece instead of per-hour? And two, did he accept responsibility for the problem?”

Beiler has always said the GOP was told by the state’s top election official beforehand that the voter-registration program was legal. And Beiler, in public and in the media, repeatedly accepted responsibility for the problem.

The focus group’s reaction?

“They said, basically, that, ’Hey, nobody’s perfect. This tells us more about him than we would have known otherwise, and we like what we see.’ “

What if the results had turned out negative?

“I would have joined leadership in trying to find another candidate, because what matters most is that Republicans win this seat,” Beiler said.