A relatively low-level player in the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commisison corruption case agreed to a guilty plea Monday. While Raymond Zajicek, 68, of Florida was accused of lesser crimes compared to others charged, including the former chief executive officer of the turnpike commission and a former state senator, Zajicek’s deal could be in exchange for later testimony on behalf of the prosecution.

The upcoming trials in the pay-to-play scandal face trial deserve public attention. The testimony should be an eye opener, confirming decades-old allegations that the Turnpike Commission is a place of political patronage, bid rigging, favoritism and political payoffs.

The charges were the result of a Grand Jury investigation made public in March of last year, but that begun in 2009.

Most people might assume that the Turnpike Commission mostly manages the 540 miles of toll road in the state. But, in reality, the commission, whose members are appointd by the state Senate, developed a pay-to-play culture that served the re-election interests of state lawmakers.

The Grand Jury report revealed that commission members steered turnpike contracts to politically favored bidders. Those bidders were often pressured to make campaign contributions to politicians’ campaigns, with the understanding that contributions lead to lucrative contracts.

Corruption at the comission was bipartisan, with Democrats and Republicans in Harrisburg both benefiting. Grand Jury testimony described the “60/40 rule” that gave 60 percent control of contracts to the majority party in the state Senate and 40 perent to the minority party. With that agreement, both parties retained some control and some access to campaign contributions regardless of which party dominated the Senate. Contracts were awarded based on the political connections of the companies and their executives more so than the costs — and as a result, the commission paid millions of dollars more for turnpike work than was necessary.

Annnouncing the charges last year, state Attorney General Kathleen Kane said of the former state officials accused of using pay-to-play schemes for financial and political gain, “It was almost as though they had no fear of being caught.”

The corruption was brazen — there was little fear of being caught. Why should there be? It had been going on for decades with the full cooperation of the leaders of both parties in Harrisburg.

The Turnpike Commission was used like a convenient piggy bank for party bosses. And depsite decades of rumors and accusations of corruption, nothing was done. Until now.

The trials of the seven others charged, paticularly former commission CEO Joe Brimmeier, chairman Mitchell Ruben and former state Sen. Robert Mellow, a Democrat, currently in prison for unrelated corruption charges, should get plenty of publicity in the news.

The turnpike corrution trials should reveal the entrenched corruption and that should build public support for shifting control of the toll road network away from the deeply politicized commission to the state Department of Transportation.

And if deals can be made, exchanging shorter prison terms for more evidence of former or current state lawmakers engaging in the corruption and pay-to-play schemes, then deals should be made.

This corruption case is just another example of how some state lawmakers have created a culture of entitlement and taking self-serving actions, as demonstrated in the 2 a.m. pay-raise vote of 2005, the 50 percent pension increase for themselves in 2001 and the Bonusgate scandal, in which legislative staffers were given bonus payments for campaign work.

There have been assurances by new Turnpike Commission officials that internal reforms will change the culture. But those assurances have been heard before. It’s time to shut down the commission — and remove the temptation for abuse that state lawmakers have shown they cannot be trusted to resist.