Pay raises could haunt incumbents next year

Pay raises could haunt incumbents next year

The legislative pay raises have sparked a court challenge and dominated political talk radio in the state.

Friday, September 16, 2005

BY CHARLES THOMPSON Of The Patriot-News

Nearly half of all Pennsylvania voters polled this month said they would be less likely to vote for an incumbent legislator who voted for the salary increase in July.

Several political consultants yesterday said that adds up to an issue that's unpopular, but perhaps not fatal for otherwise strong incumbents in 2006. But a reform-minded activist said the poll proves he has a good base to build on.

The salary bill, acted on in the early morning hours of July 7, moments before lawmakers broke for the summer, contained raises for judges, Cabinet secretaries and other executive branch officials. It also increased the pay of legislators from 16 percent to 54 percent.

The just-released Keystone Poll asked voters a series of questions pertaining to the legislative salary increases.

Seventy-nine percent of respondents said the raises were not deserved.

In what may be the most important question to the 132 lawmakers who voted for their own raise and must stand for re-election next year, 46 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to support their incumbent if he or she voted for the pay raise.

Forty-one percent said the vote would not make much difference in their decision.

G. Terry Madonna, the Keystone Poll's creator and a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College, said the result demonstrates the issue may "have legs" in some of next year's legislative races and give opposing candidates a ready-made, hot-button issue.

The pay raises have sparked a court challenge, dominated political talk radio in the state through the summer months, and prompted criticism of the General Assembly by the Republican State Committee.

Madonna said the issue could become especially important if voters' sense of their own financial well-being doesn't improve by next year.

"The combination of these things is what's really at work here," Madonna said. "People don't feel they're financially better off, and yet the Legislature gives itself a raise. ... People are not willing to say this is OK."

WHP AM radio talk show host Bob Durgin, an organizer of an anti-pay raise rally scheduled for Sept. 26 at the Capitol, laughed when told of the survey results.

"My first reaction is, only 79 percent [disapprove]?" he said. "I would have guessed 99 percent. Oh well, 79 percent of 100 is better than nothing."

One advocate for government reform took encouragement from the results.

"I can interpret that poll as showing that most people believe the Legislature is out of touch with reality, or at least the economic reality of most Pennsylvanians," said Russ Diamond, a Lebanon County businessman who has turned his frustration over the pay raises into an Internet-based, oust-the-incumbents movement.

Diamond's "Operation Clean Sweep" has recruited 26 candidates to run for General Assembly seats next year.

But Michael Long, an aide to Senate President Pro Tem Robert Jubelirer, R-Blair, and a veteran of state Senate campaigns, said his reading of the data doesn't spell disaster for incumbents.

Pointing to the gap between those who felt legislators did not deserve the pay raise (79 percent) and those who said it will factor in their votes next year (46 percent), Long said, "They'll weigh it along with a whole host of others, including the candidate's career record.

"The voters are bright, they know what they're doing ... and they'll put all those things into perspective," he said.

CHARLES THOMPSON: 705-5724 or cthompson@patriot-news.com

©2005 The Patriot-News

Source: http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1126862408171440.xml&coll=1

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