HARRISBURG — The head of Common Cause Pennsylvania on Thursday renewed the organization’s call for a ban on gifts to public officials, citing news reports that four state lawmakers were caught on tape accepting money from a confidential informant during a criminal investigation.

Executive director Barry Kauffman said Thursday that a “seemingly unending litany of abuses of power” makes people cynical about the integrity of state government.

“It is long past time to draw some bright uncrossable lines in Pennsylvania’s ethics and lobbying laws,” Kauffman said. “Pennsylvania needs to follow the lead of other states that take government integrity seriously.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Sunday that the lawmakers accepted the money as part of a sting operation that never produced charges. Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who inherited the matter when she took office early last year, said the investigation was poorly run and the case was considered to be fatally flawed by her staff, a federal law enforcement agency and the county prosecutor in Harrisburg.

Kane said about eight people in all took money that totaled just over $20,000.

Pennsylvania’s Ethics Act bans gifts that are given to influence an official’s decisions. Public officials must disclose gifts that are not from family or close friends and are worth $250 or total $650 in a given year.

None of the four — all Philadelphia Democrats in the state House — has been charged with any crime.