PA pay scandal-news-Heartland

Source: Heartland Institute
==Pennsylvania Pay Scandal Keeps Rolling==
: Author: Steve Stanek, Published by: The Heartland Institute in: Budget & Tax News, December 2006
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled lawmakers violated the state
constitution when they passed midterm pay raises last year, but the justices
kept pay raises for themselves and 1,000 other judges that were approved as
part of the pay package.
The September 14, 2006, ruling has renewed anger about the scandal, and a
legislative move is afoot to roll back judicial pay and take other actions
against judges.
"The Pennsylvania Supreme Court cherry-picked a provision from a
non-severable bill that had been repealed--a bill they deemed to be
partially unconstitutional--and made a ruling that would fill its pockets
and the pockets of every other member of the judicial branch," said
Republican state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler), who opposed the pay raise
and the budget that funded it.
"The judiciary, through this decision as well as others, has indicated that
it believes it is above and beyond the reach of the people and their
representatives in the legislature," said Metcalfe.
===Rekindled Outrage===
Less than two weeks after the court's ruling, Metcalfe announced a package
of "checks and balances" bills to terminate the judicial pay raise, reduce
the term of office for judges from 10 to five years, eliminate the practice
of judicial retention (where voters are asked whether a judge should be
retained, without the judge running head-to-head against others for the
position), and strike the constitutional provision that prohibits the
reduction of a judicial salary in the middle of a term in office.
Nate Benefield, a policy analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation in
Harrisburg, said the court ruling "rekindles the anger. In the mid-state
region, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg especially, with talk radio and other
media, it's rekindled the outrage against an out-of-control state
government. People are looking at the ruling as being in the court's
self-interest."
By ignoring the non-severability provision of the bill to uphold their own
pay raise while striking down the pay raise for lawmakers and salaried
officials in the executive branch, "It's like the court was saying we'll
take your bribe but we're not going to do what you bribed us for," Benefield
said.
The only justice to dissent from the ruling--Thomas Saylor--is the next
Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice who will face a retention election, in
2007.
===Roiling Since 2005===
The pay raise scandal has been roiling Pennsylvania politics since the raise
was enacted in July 2005. Some members of Pennsylvania's Supreme Court
allegedly worked with lawmakers in 2005 to finagle the pay raises to get
around the Pennsylvania constitution's ban on midterm pay raises for elected
officials. They devised a scheme to allow the payment of "unvouchered"
expenses.
Officials could submit "unvouchered" expense items for reimbursement. Those
unvouchered expenses resulted in pay raises for lawmakers that ranged from
16 to 34 percent. Their base pay effectively rose to $81,050 from $69,647.
Top legislative leaders saw their pay rise to $145,000, up from $110,000 a
year. Annual salaries for supreme court justices went from $150,369 to
$171,800.
===Price Paid at Polls===
The pay raise scheme sparked howls of protest among the Pennsylvania
citizenry, and they struck back in November 2005 by voting against the
retention of Justice Russell Nigro. Justice Sandra Schultz Newman was barely
retained.
Nigro, a Democrat, became the first justice denied retention in the state's
history. Newman, a Republican, kept her job only with the help of a
last-minute barrage of advertisements and endorsements from former
Republican governor Tom Ridge and other Republican heavyweights.
One week after the stunning 2005 judicial retention results, lawmakers
repealed the pay raise package.
But the electoral anger carried over to this year. Dozens of Pennsylvania
lawmakers are being driven out of office. Thirty incumbents decided not to
seek reelection, and 17 others were defeated in this year's Democratic and
Republican Party primary elections.
===Money Kept===
Meanwhile, some state judges challenged the repeal of the pay package,
arguing the state constitution bars cuts to judicial salaries that are not
part of an across-the-board salary reduction for all state officers. The
state supreme court agreed with those judges and ordered the judicial pay
raises reinstated.
Throwing salt into the wound of pay raise critics, the court also declined
to require lawmakers to return the additional money they collected before
the pay raise was repealed.
About 40 of 158 lawmakers who accepted the raise have kept the money. The
rest have voluntarily returned it.
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