Pay hike foes start uphill struggle

Pay hike foes start uphill struggle

More than 40 legislators agree to back repeal

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG -- More than 40 dissident lawmakers are waging an uphill campaign to repeal the 16 percent to 34 percent pay raises that legislators gave themselves in the wee hours of July 7.

The bipartisan group still has a long way to go, since at least 102 votes are needed in the House to kill the raises that were approved without public debate or hearings just before legislators adjourned for the summer.

The key to success, said Rep. Greg Vitali, D-Delaware, is for residents around the state to continue to urge their own legislators to vote for the repeal bill.

"Public opposition to the pay raise has to be sustained," Vitali said at a Capitol news conference yesterday.

"It's going to come down to sustained public pressure for real change in how the Legislature does business. There has to be that public pressure."

Another supporter of the effort, Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Cranberry, vowed to "try to rally the votes and undo the wrong that has been done."

So far, 43 names appear on the bill as co-sponsors, but Rep. Paul Clymer, R-Bucks, said two more legislators signed on yesterday.

Rep. Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, said that until the pay raise measure is overturned, "the credibility of the Legislature is at stake. We have to get people who voted for the raise to change their minds."

But that won't be easy. House Speaker John Perzel, R-Philadelphia, a strong supporter of the pay raises whose salary jumped 34 percent, to $145,000, has said he won't bring the bill to a vote on the House floor "without 102 votes," or slightly more than half of the 203-member House.

The pay-hike bill passed in the House 119-79 and in the Senate 27-23. That means at least 23 House members and three senators would have to switch sides if the repeal is to succeed.

Supporters of the repeal measure, officially called House Bill 1945, admitted they have their work cut out for them but didn't think it was impossible.

"I think if it gets to a vote on the House floor, it passes," said Rep. Tom Tangretti, D-Westmoreland.

But convincing leaders of both parties to allow it to have a floor vote will be difficult, backers conceded. Historically, legislation that leaders oppose simply is referred to a committee and dies without a vote.

Also yesterday, Rep. Will Gabig, R-Cumberland, introduced a companion measure, House Bill 1956, that would bar lawmakers from getting their mid-term raises immediately in the form of "unvouchered expenses."

A rank-and-file lawmaker's pay will go from $69,647 a year to $81,050. The raises technically don't take effect until Dec. 1, 2006, but some lawmakers are taking the money immediately, even though the state constitution bars them from getting raises in the middle of a term.

Of the 253 lawmakers, 134 are taking the higher compensation as expense reimbursement rather than as actual salary, which allows them to receive it now. Two court cases have called this permissible, even though many lawmakers and Gov. Ed Rendell have criticized it.

Gabig called the unvouchered expenses approach an unacceptable dodge to get around the constitution. Vitali and Metcalfe said Gabig's bill doesn't go far enough and the entire pay raise bill should be repealed.

Vitali contended the pay raise bill is unconstitutional because it wasn't considered in public on three different days. Instead, it was rammed through just an hour before legislators recessed for the summer.

Rep. Gordon Denlinger, R-Lancaster, vowed to press Perzel and other GOP leaders for a vote on the repeal bill.

He said the continuing statewide uproar over the size of the raises -- and the way they were approved -- already has made rank-and-file legislators bolder with their leaders.

"We must recognize that a sea change is occurring in our midst," he said. "Leadership has always set the agenda and the rank-and-file followed. I think now there will be a more direct questioning of leadership."

Metcalfe said top legislators often forget that it was voters who put them there.

"When someone has been in office for a long time, they believe they are untouchable," he said. "They become arrogant. But a lot of people are now paying attention to what the General Assembly is doing."

Perzel has firmly refused to back down on the raises. He noted that state lawmakers' base pay of $81,050 a year is half of the $162,100 salary that a member of Congress gets this year. Committee chairmen, caucus leaders, party whips, floor leaders and other officials make more than the minimum, up to Perzel's maximum of $145,000.

Perzel told The Associated Press last weekend: "If you're asking me if I'm ashamed of [state legislators making] half of what Congress [makes], I am not. If you're asking me whether or not I'm going back to fight to repeal what we've done, I am not."

House Democratic leader H. William DeWeese of Waynesburg, whose pay jumped from $100,000 to $134,000, also has belittled legislators who want to undo the raises. He has punished pay raise opponents by removing them from committee posts and giving the higher-paid jobs to lawmakers who supported the increases.

Tangretti sounded remorseful yesterday as he issued an apology to state residents for not speaking out more vigorously against the raise early on.

"I apologize to the citizens of Pennsylvania for our silence on the morning of July 7," said Tangretti, who voted "no" on the pay raise bill.

He said that "no bill comes to the floor without the imprimatur of leadership." Although there had been a "energetic and heated" debate in closed party caucuses, "we were inclined to not say anything" in a televised session on the floor.

Tangretti said there was "a pre-ordained outcome" for the pay raise bill, which made debate fruitless, "but that was wrong and I regret it very much."

Barry Kauffman of Common Cause/Pennsylvania chastised lawmakers for not speaking out before the pay raise vote, but added: "If you make a mistake, admit it and fix it."

Metcalfe called the raise "the worst corruption I've seen in the last seven years" in the Legislature. He said some legislators claim they deserve higher pay because they put in long hours.

"But this is public service," he said. "It's about serving, not deserving.

"Public service was never designed to make anyone rich. If someone in public service isn't content with the pay they receive, they should look for work in the private sector."

------------------------------------ (Harrisburg Bureau chief Tom Barnes can be reached at tbarnes@post-gazette.com or 1-717-787-4254.) Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05257/570990.stm

Vice Chairman of Voter Education http://www.ycop.org http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YCOP/ http://www.InformedPA.com