Rendell: Keep pay for judges

Posted on Fri, Nov. 04, 2005

Rendell: Keep pay for judges

He said he would sign a measure repealing the legislative raises with this condition. The House and Senate passed competing versions of the bill.

By Mario F. Cattabiani and Angela Couloumbis

Inquirer Staff Writers

HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell said yesterday he would sign a bill to repeal pay raises for lawmakers and executive officers if one comes to his desk, as long as judges get to keep their higher paychecks.

Rendell, who signed the pay-raise bill into law four months ago, urged House and Senate leaders to put aside their differences - which degenerated into a spat between two top Republicans late Wednesday - and swiftly send him a bill.

The governor called the continuing controversy "a huge distraction" that has given government "a black eye."

"We have spent far too much time concentrating on the legislature's own personal business and not enough time concentrating on the people's business," Rendell said at an afternoon news conference.

The governor's comments came hours after the two chambers voted overwhelmingly late Wednesday to repeal the raises - only to get tangled up over competing versions of the bill.

When legislators left the Capitol early yesterday, the repeal action was still unresolved. The House will return to Harrisburg on Monday - a week earlier than planned - to take up the repeal again.

Senate Majority Leader David J. Brightbill (R., Lebanon) says he expected the chambers would find common ground. "This is going to work its way out," Brightbill said.

On July 7, the General Assembly raised legislative base salaries by 16 percent to $81,050. Legislative leaders saw their salaries increase 34 percent, with two getting pay hikes of 54 percent.

About half of the 253 House and Senate members have accepted the raise through legislative expense accounts since August, despite a constitutional ban on midterm pay raises.

The pay-raise law also increased the salaries for the judiciary, from district judges to those on the state's Supreme Court. Those raises began in the summer.

Until yesterday, Rendell had said only that he would sign a bill repealing the provision that allowed lawmakers to take raises at midterm through legislative accounts. That would have delayed the raises until the next term, which for most legislators would start in December 2006.

Yesterday, Rendell moved beyond his initial stance, and urged lawmakers to send a bill to his desk.

"I'm calling on the legislature to resolve pay-raise differences between the House and the Senate quickly... and then to get down to work" on issues such as providing property-tax relief, he said.

The issue boils down to whether the state constitution prevents legislators from cutting judges' salaries.

The bill that passed the Senate, 50-0, on Wednesday would repeal the raises for all state officials, including judges. It was expected, however, that the law would be challenged and the courts would keep the pay raise in place for judges, while repealing them for everyone else.

The House bill, which passed, 196-2, dictates that if the courts toss out any portion of the repeal law, the entire measure dies. That would mean that the legislature, top administration officials, and judges would all keep their raises.

Rendell said yesterday that he was not sure whether he would sign the bill as passed by the House. He said he believed the state constitution contains a protective provision for judges' salaries for good reason.

Otherwise, he said, "if a judge comes up with a decision the legislature didn't like, they could reduce their salary to nothing."

Senate President Pro Tempore Robert C. Jubelirer (R., Blair) agreed. He said he believed the House version was a "poison pill" designed to have the entire bill thrown out by the courts.

House Republicans, meanwhile, countered that the Senate's action was designed to ensure that Jubelirer's wife, Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn, kept her fatter paycheck.

"This is about protecting the salary of judges, and one of them happens to be married to the president pro tempore," House Majority Leader Sam Smith (R., Jefferson) said late Wednesday, igniting a rare public squabble between top Republican leaders.

Told of Smith's comments, Jubelirer's face clenched.

"They know doggone well we wouldn't be here today... if I had gone along with them" and ignored calls to repeal the pay raise, said Jubelirer, whose decision to allow a repeal vote in the Senate forced the House to follow suit. "I didn't. And the response I get is, they go after my wife. Pretty sad, pretty sad."

Drew Crompton, Jubelirer's legal counsel, said House Republicans "should be very careful with what they start throwing around."

"If they want a war on this," he said, "they are going to get it."

Rendell called the episode "unseemly."

The House could pass the Senate version and send it to Rendell. Or House members could send it back to the Senate, insisting that the upper chamber accept their version.

If the chambers can't come to terms, a committee could be formed to iron out the wrinkles.

Asked yesterday about the chances of an agreement between the House and Senate, House Speaker John M. Perzel (R., Phila.) said the question should be posed to the Senate.

"The public that I saw, the people who were writing to me, wanted the whole thing repealed," he said.

Crompton said: "Until the constitution changes, I don't see us bending."

Contact staff writer Mario F. Cattabiani at 717-787-5990 or mcattabiani@phillynews.com. Inquirer staff writer Kellie Patrick contributed to this article.

Source: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/13076595.htm

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