Voters Seethe Over Politicians’ Raises

In the dead of night on July 7, Pennsylvania’s state legislators secretly voted themselves substantial pay raises. There was no debate. Nobody notified the media that night. Then the lawmakers slipped out of town on a two-month vacation.

Reporters wrote about the raises, which ranged from 16% to 34%, right away -- triggering protest that has lasted more than a month, enlivening the dog days of August with a wave of public contempt, scorn and vitriol.

In an era before bloggers and websites, the outrage might have died after a few days. But at least two “throw the bums out” websites have continued to fan public debate, along with diatribes from bloggers and howls of protest in more traditional outlets like talk radio, editorials, letters to the editor and petition drives.

“This thing has legs,” said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.

“This furor has lasted longer than any issue I’ve seen in my 30 years of watching Pennsylvania politics.”

It wasn’t just the timing of the 2 a.m. vote or the size of the raises. There was also the loophole legislators crafted around a state law that prohibits them from profiting from a pay increase until after the session in which it is approved. Instead of waiting until December 2006, legislators got their money right away through “unvouchered expenses” drawn from what some analysts called a “slush fund” of $130 million.

Not many voters knew that legislative caucus leaders in Harrisburg, the capital, had socked away the $130 million in “leadership accounts.” And only belatedly did they learn that the loophole and pay raise were approved hours after legislators voted to slash Medicaid services to the state’s disabled, elderly and poor. The state has a $450-million surplus, according to Madonna, but also faces a $1-billion-a-year deficit in Medicaid costs.

“Oil on ice does not get this slimy,” wrote John Grogan, a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist who has helped lead a spirited attack on the legislators through a series of angry columns.

“Taxpayers, can you feel the burn?” Grogan asked. He excoriated the Legislature (a “pathetic excuse of an elected public body”) for “venality and greed and brazen, boundless hubris.” Grogan pointed out that the median wage in the state was $23,714 -- a fraction of what was earned by legislators, who served an average of 77 session days a year the last five years.

The raises vaulted Pennsylvania’s 253 legislators to second place in pay among the nation’s state legislatures, behind California. Rank-and-file legislators received a 16% raise, to $81,050 a year. Senior legislative leaders got a 34% boost, to $145,553.

Across the state, liberal and conservative editorial pages and columnists have denounced the raises and the process. “Backhanded,” said the Lebanon Daily News. “Sleazy gimmick,” said the York Daily Record. “A bad crowd,” a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist wrote of the Legislature, which he accused of “grabbing our money with both hands.” The Philadelphia Daily News ran a “list of shame” of Philadelphia-area lawmakers who initially indicated they’d accept the early payments.

Letter writers chimed in: “Absolute disgrace,” wrote a Philadelphia Daily News reader. “Shame on them,” wrote a Patriot-News reader. “Thieves serving as legislators,” another Patriot-News reader wrote.

The law -- which links salaries to the pay of Congress members and other federal officials -- also applies to the governor, a handful of Cabinet officers and elected officials, and several hundred judges. The governor credited the chief justice of Pennsylvania, Ralph J. Cappy, with suggesting that mechanism.

Cappy wrote an op-ed article, distributed to state newspapers, in which he dismissed hostile public reaction as “superficial political correctness.” He suggested that legislators showed “extraordinary courage” in doing “what is right.” Cappy’s article did not mention that he received a $22,352 raise, to $176,800 a year.

As public outrage mounted, 11 legislators announced they had decided not to take their raises this term after all.

Gov. Ed Rendell, who signed the bill, received about a thousand letters, phone calls and e-mails. Rendell initially told reporters: “It’s legal -- and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

But the garrulous governor was soon talking about the controversy at length, saying, “I think it’s a little bit media-inspired, to be honest.” The Democrat said he would not accept his raise, adding that the legislators who turned down their raises “did the right thing.” But asked whether he regretted signing the pay-raise bill, Rendell replied, “Absolutely not.”

The governor did say that the public “has a right to be concerned.” He added: “I can understand the consternation.”

Even rank-and-file legislators were caught by surprise, said state Rep. Greg S. Vitali, a Democrat from suburban Philadelphia who voted against the raise. In an interview, Vitali said legislative leaders did not notify the rank and file about the bill until a few hours before the vote. He said the bill was slipped in at the last minute, attached to a minor piece of legislation.

The pay-raise legislation contained no salary numbers, Vitali said, and did not include a “fiscal note,” required by law, outlining the economic impact of the legislation. Nor was the legislation offered on three consecutive days, as required by state law, he said.

“The rank and file didn’t see any numbers,” Vitali said. “They had no idea the leadership salaries would go as high as they did. Our leadership chose to cut the public out of the process.”

Vitali was one of 15 Democratic committee leaders stripped of their posts by the party’s state House leader, H. William DeWeese, after voting against the raise. They were replaced by legislators who voted for the bill -- and who will receive an extra $4,050 a year in the leadership posts.

Daylin Leach, a Democrat from the Philadelphia suburbs, defended the raise. In a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed article Monday, Leach said that aside from cost-of-living raises, the hike was the first in 10 years for Pennsylvania, which has one of four full-time state legislatures in the U.S. The issue has been blown out of proportion by the media, he wrote.

Many outraged voters swear they will vote out every incumbent they can in May’s primary and in general elections in November 2006. A Harrisburg radio talk-show host, Bob Durgin, said he had collected about 12,000 petition signatures and was organizing a rally to confront legislators when they returned to Harrisburg next month.

In Philadelphia, a group of voters launched a petition drive designed to force the Legislature to roll back the raises. An activist in Harrisburg filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the unvouchered expenses.

The raise was the fourth that legislators had awarded themselves since 1983, said Madonna, of Franklin & Marshall College. The most recent, in 1995, sought to end such votes by linking salaries to the cost of living. Legislators have been taking annual cost-of-living increases since 1995.

Last month’s vote gave legislators a raise on top of cost-of-living increases.

Legislators have tapped unvouchered expenses for immediate raises before, Madonna acknowledged, “but it’s still a dodge.”

Public outrage over previous pay increases lasted less than a week, Madonna said. In the first general election after the 1995 pay raise, 99% of statewide incumbents were reelected.

“Though the current furor is unprecedented,” he said, “I have to wonder whether the public will forget all about it by election time.”