Pennsylvanians have paid more than $2.8 million for defense lawyers since 2011, mostly in cases involving corruption that sent lawmakers to jail, according to an Associated Press report this week. Legal fees often went to lawyers for General Assembly members or legislative staff who were called as witnesses, not suspects.

All such payments end when a staffer or member is charged with a crime. Senate Democrats and Republicans did not disclose to The Associated Press the names of all of those receiving taxpayer-financed attorneys, and documents provided were heavily redacted.Corruption has many costs — most importantly a loss of trust in public institutions.The Legislature surely is one such body. If its mandates — for example to quit texting while driving (Pennsylvania law since 2012) — appear reasonable and just, they are more likely to be obeyed.All the better if the crafters of those laws seem just and legitimate. If they don’t, cynicism can develop (“I bet those lawmakers text and drive”). Fortunately, Pennsylvanians behave better than their top elected officials have in recent years. Otherwise, we might have been plunged into lawlessness.Scandals involving the use of taxpayer-financed computers and staff for political purposes sent the Legislature’s top elected officials to prison, among them two former state House speakers, Republican John Perzel and Democrat Bill DeWeese, and Bob Mellow, the state Senate’s former Democratic leader.A top prosecutor in the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office told a joint House committee in 2012 that restitution ordered by the courts in those legislative scandals totaled more than $4.8 million.The total includes Perzel’s $30,000 in fines and $1 million in restitution, and DeWeese’s $25,000 in fines and $117,000 in restitution.That hardly pays for the damage done to the image of the House — or to the halls of the Capitol, where the plaques beneath the convicted speakers’ portraits now note their convictions. But at least it can be counted against the $2.8 million spent on lawyers paid for others who worked in the Capitol — often innocent of any corruption themselves but fearful of being questioned about what they might have seen their bosses doing.It makes sense for the public to pay for attorneys for those not guilty of corruption but who, in their public duties, might have witnessed actions that amount to corruption.The remaining issue is Senate officials’ refusal to come clean on the full list of those who received taxpayer help in paying their attorneys’ fees. If all was on the up-and-up, those names should be made available without shame. If not, then there is a bigger problem than a breach of the spirit of Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law (which, shamefully, does not apply to the Legislature).Until Senate officials release the names of those provided legal help on the taxpayers’ dime, and do so with as little redaction as possible, the black mark of corruption will continue to hang over the Capitol.Senate leaders should lift this cloud.— LNPThe foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.