Three former legislative aides who went public with damaging accusations against state Rep. Gibson C. Armstrong weeks before the May 2006 primary never went on to file complaints, the ex-lawmaker and one of the aides said.

“They did nothing because it was completely baseless,” Armstrong said when asked about the issue. “They had no intention of filing a complaint.”

One of the aides said it was another aide who was planning to file the ethics complaint. That aide did not return a call and e-mail to offer an explanation of why she never carried through with that.

The ethics controversy, which hurt and perhaps ended Armstrong’s re-election chances, became relevant this week because the Strasburg Township man is now on Gov. Ed Rendell’s short list of candidates for a high-paying job with the Public Utility Commission.

The New Era contacted the state Ethics Commission about whether any complaint was ever filed against Armstrong. The commission does not confirm or deny whether it has received complaints or whether it is investigating someone.

A spokesman did say, however, that the commission notifies the subjects of such complaints.

“If this is from April 2006, the person who is a subject would know whether they are under investigation,” he said. “If a complaint was supposed to have been filed in April 2006 and they said they did not receive notification, it means they’re either lying to you or there was no complaint.”

Armstrong said he was never contacted by the Ethics Commission about the issue and that no complaint was ever filed against him.

One of the former staffers who made some of the allegations, Susan Delfert, said neither she nor the other two staffers filed complaints.

Heather MacMillan, Becky Kauffman and Delfert went public in late March with claims that Armstrong had held campaign events in his district office and had ordered aides to perform campaign-related duties.

Such activity is against the law.

Some of the allegations, which the lawmaker repeatedly denied, dated back to 2003.

MacMillan told the New Era on March 30, 2006, that she was preparing to file a complaint with the Ethics Commission within days. Contacted later that week, MacMillan said she had been told it was against Ethics Commission policy to discuss the issue anymore.

“According to the Ethics Commission, I cannot disclose or cause to be disclosed any information in a report and I cannot disclose or cause to be disclosed whether or not I have filed a report,” the Lititz resident wrote in an e-mail to the New Era.

“So if you want to see a report or find out if one was filed you would have to contact the Ethics Commission. I was told this today.....so I cannot talk about this anymore,” MacMillan finished.

That she had contact with the Ethics Commission suggested she had also filed a complaint, though some insiders later expressed doubt. Because the commission, as a matter of policy, does not confirm the existence of such complaints, it wasn’t immediately clear.

Confusing the issue was a post on an Internet forum hosted by Lancaster Newspapers Inc. from someone who identified herself as MacMillan.

In June, that poster, “hmac,” responded to criticism from an anonymous Armstrong supporter by writing: “... I can tell you that most of the people calling me a liar because they know Gib or whatever are in for a rude awakening when their name shows up in the investigation.”

MacMillan did not respond to a Thursday e-mail inquiry or a Friday telephone message.

Delfert said she did not know why MacMillan never filed a complaint. She added that although she and Kauffman made some of the allegations against Armstrong, only MacMillan planned to file a complaint.

“She had one all ready. She pulled out of doing it,” Delfert said.

Armstrong lost the primary to Bryan Cutler, who now represents the 100th District. The former lawmaker said the allegations were politically motivated and false.

“I think it had an impact, and I know what their intent was,” Armstrong said. “They achieved their purpose.”

Cutler has said his campaign had no involvement.

Asked to reply to Armstrong’s suggestion that the allegations were false, Delfert said: “None of us has a reason to lie, and that’s it.”

Armstrong is on the governor’s short list of candidates for a vacancy on the state Public Utility Commission, Harrisburg sources confirmed this week. If picked by Rendell and confirmed by the state Senate, he would serve a five-year term as a PUC commissioner and earn $124,000 a year, about $50,000 more than he earned as a legislator.
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