Opinion ID: 2192923
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Legislative Unvouchered Expense Allowances and Consumer Party

Text: Stilp's last constitutional challenge concerns, not the entirety of Act 44, but the legislative unvouchered expense allowance provision. See Act 44, ง 2 (amending 46 Pa.C.S. ง 1107). This provision reads as follows: ง 1107. Additional expenses (a) Senate. โ (1) Beginning on the effective date of this subsection and ending November 30, 2008, a member of the Senate shall receive monthly, in addition to any allocation for clerical assistance and other actual expenses, an unvouchered expense allocation in the amount of 1/12 of the difference between: (i) the amount specified for a member in: (A) section 1102(a) (relating to members of the General Assembly) plus section 1104 (relating to cost of living) as appropriate; or (B) section 1103(a) (relating to legislative officers and leaders) plus section 1104 as appropriate; and (ii) the amount calculated for that member as of the effective date of this subparagraph pursuant to the act of September 30, 1983 (P.L. 160, No. 39), known as the Public Official Compensation Law. (2) This subsection shall expire November 30, 2008. (b) House of Representatives. โ (1) Beginning on the effective date of this subsection, a member of the House of Representatives may receive each month, in addition to any allocation for clerical assistance and other actual expenses, an unvouchered expense allocation in the amount of 1/12 of the difference between: (i) the amount specified for a member in: (A) section 1102(b); or (B) section 1103(b) as appropriate; and (ii) the amount calculated for that member as of the effective date of this subparagraph pursuant to the Public Official Compensation Law. (2) The Rules Committee of the House of Representatives shall determine the procedure by which a member of the House of Representatives may receive an allocation under this subsection. (3) This subsection shall expire November 30, 2006. Act 44, ง 2 (amending 46 Pa.C.S. ง 1107) (footnote omitted). Specifically, Stilp contends that the unvouchered expense allowances provided in Act 44 violate Article II, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. This provision, entitled Compensation, reads as follows: The members of the General Assembly shall receive such salary and mileage for regular and special sessions as shall be fixed by law, and no other compensation whatever, whether for service upon committee or otherwise. No member of either House shall during the term for which he may have been elected, receive any increase of salary, or mileage, under any law passed during such term. PA. CONST. art. II, ง 8. Stilp maintains that Act 44's unvouchered expense allowances are an unconstitutional attempt to circumvent Article II, Section 8's express proscription against a mid-term increase in legislative salary by allowing incumbent legislators to secure pay raises immediately without waiting for the next election. Stilp highlights two mechanical aspects of the allowances that, in his view, unquestionably prove that the allowances are a de facto salary increase. First, he notes that the unvouchered expenses authorized in Act 44 equaled the exact dollar-for-dollar amount of the increase in legislative salaries provided under the formula adopted by Act 44 and which were to take effect after the next election for each individual legislator. Indeed, the amount of the unvouchered expense allowance was not expressed in dollar terms, but only with reference to the equivalent percentage of the future salary increase. Second, Stilp notes that the unvouchered expenses expired at different times, depending upon the election cycle. Thus, the expenses were available from July 7, 2005 (the effective date of Act 44) until November 30, 2006 for members of the House, all of whose seats would be up for election in the 2006 general election. For Senators, however, the expenses were made available until November 30, 2006 or November 30, 2008, depending on the term of office for each Senator. Concisely, Section 2 of Act 44, amending 46 Pa.C.S. ง 1107, permitted legislators to immediately receive, as unvouchered expenses, the precise amount of their future salary increase until their actual salary increases took effect following each legislator's next election. Furthermore, Stilp argues that the unvouchered expense allowances were not intended as compensation for actual expenses incurred by legislators; in this regard, he asserts, the $7,500 in vouchered expenses already provided to legislators each year is more than adequate to cover actually incurred expenses. [32] [33] In connection with his contention that the unvouchered expense provision is unconstitutional, Stilp argues that this Court's decision in Consumer Party, 510 Pa. 158, 507 A.2d 323, which approved the General Assembly's use of unvouchered expenses in prior compensation legislation, must be overruled. Stilp also argues that we should disapprove of two Commonwealth Court cases which relied on Consumer Party to uphold unvouchered expense provisions enacted in subsequent compensation legislation. See Stilp v. Commonwealth, 699 A.2d 1353 (Pa. Cmwlth.1997); Kennedy v. Commonwealth, 119 Pa.Cmwlth. 24, 546 A.2d 733 (Cmwlth.1988) ( en banc ). Stilp initially maintains that the portion of Consumer Party approving unvouchered expenses was actually dicta because the issue was not properly before the Court. Stilp argues that dicta has no precedential value, and that Kennedy's and Stilp's repetition of the Consumer Party dicta did not elevate that dicta into precedent. See Commonwealth v. Perry, 568 Pa. 499, 798 A.2d 697, 715 (2002) (Castille, J., concurring) ( Dicta is not converted into binding constitutional precedent through repetition.). Stilp alternatively argues that even if Consumer Party, Kennedy, and Stilp are deemed to be binding precedent, they must be overruled because they are incorrect to the extent they hold that mid-term provisions for legislative unvouchered expenses are constitutional. See Stilp's Brief at 22 (citing Mayle v. Pa. Dept. of Highways, 479 Pa. 384, 388 A.2d 709, 720 (1978) ([T]he doctrine of stare decisis is not a vehicle for perpetuating error, but rather a legal concept which responds to the demands of justice and, thus, permits the orderly growth processes of the law to flourish. ...)). Lastly, Stilp maintains that this Court must specifically direct the General Assembly never to include a legislative unvouchered expense provision in future pay raise legislation. Treasurer Casey again aligns himself with Stilp on this issue. Specifically, he agrees with Stilp that Act 44's unvouchered expense provision violates Article II, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution because it is a mid-term salary increase; that Consumer Party must be overruled; and that the legislators who took the unvouchered expenses prior to Act 72's repeal of Act 44 must repay the payments. In its amicus curiae brief, Potts emphasizes, as Stilp does, that the unvouchered expense allowances are not paid for actual business expenses incurred by legislators, and that the allowances in this legislation equaled the exact amount of salary increases that were to take effect upon the next election for each individual legislator. Therefore, according to Potts, the unvouchered expense allowances in Act 44 are salary merely disguised under a different name. Potts additionally invites this Court to overrule Consumer Party and clarify that unvouchered expenses are unconstitutional and an improper circumvention of Article II, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. In response, the remaining appellees โ which include Attorney General Corbett on behalf of the Commonwealth, Senator Jubelirer, and Speaker Perzel โ maintain that the Article II, Section 8 challenge must be rejected under both Consumer Party and the doctrine of stare decisis. Specifically, appellees argue that mid-term provisions for legislative unvouchered expense allowances do not constitute salary or mileage under our holding in Consumer Party, and thus are outside the scope of Article II, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Appellees also argue that Stilp has failed to satisfy the necessary burden for this Court to overrule Consumer Party. Senator Jubelirer and Speaker Perzel then offer additional, substantive reasons in support of these general arguments. Senator Jubelirer initially acknowledges that there are some differences between the unvouchered expenses upheld in Consumer Party and those provided in Act 44, most notably that the unvouchered expense allowances upheld in Consumer Party were not in an amount equal to the future salary increase. But, the Senator maintains that the differences are immaterial and, thus, the doctrine of stare decisis requires this Court to uphold Act 44's unvouchered expense provision and reaffirm Consumer Party. The Senator asserts that the General Assembly relies upon this Court's precedent in enacting legislation, and that the overruling of Consumer Party would cast uncertainty and confusion regarding a fundamentally important legislative function. Senator Jubelirer's Brief at 31. For his part, Speaker Perzel maintains that Act 44's unvouchered expense provision complies with Consumer Party, and that the General Assembly acted in good faith reliance on this precedent in enacting the provision. The Speaker acknowledges that this Court has appeared to be uneasy with Consumer Party, pointing to: the recent decision in PAGE which overruled the legal standard announced in Consumer Party for evaluating Article III, Section 1 original purpose challenges; and the phrasing of the portion of our Order of December 22, 2005 concerning the unvouchered expense issue. Given this perceived uneasiness with Consumer Party, the Speaker maintains, the Legislature, as a practical concern, requires guidance and clarification from the Court for any future legislation ... [and] a dependable ruling on the requirements of Article II, Section 8, and most directly concerning the continued constitutionality of those unvouchered expense allocations in the amount of the future pay raise. Speaker Perzel's Brief at 26. This Court reviews constitutional challenges to a statute under the presumption that the General Assembly does not intend to violate the Constitution; accordingly, a statute enjoys a strong presumption of constitutionality. See 1 Pa.C.S. ง 1922(3); PAGE, 877 A.2d at 393. Any party challenging the constitutionality of a statute bears the heavy burden of proving that the act clearly, palpably, and plainly violates the Constitution, and all doubts are to be resolved in favor of a finding of constitutionality. PAGE, 877 A.2d at 393. In construing constitutional provisions, the fundamental rule of construction which guides [the Court] is that the Constitution's language controls and must be interpreted in its popular sense, as understood by the people when they voted on its adoption. Ieropoli, 842 A.2d at 925. All parties involved agree that Article II, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution plainly and unequivocally prohibits legislators from receiving mid-term salary increases. The issue then is whether the mid-term legislative unvouchered expense allowance authorized by Act 44 is in fact a salary increase, and therefore is repugnant to the Constitution. Our analysis necessarily begins with Consumer Party. Consumer Party involved Act 39 of 1983 (the Public Official Compensation Law), a comprehensive law that, similar to Act 44, addressed the compensation of officials in all three branches of government. Section 4 of the Act raised the salaries of members of the General Assembly by $10,000, to a total of $35,000 per annum, made effective following the next election. Section 4 also authorized $7,500 in vouchered expenses for clerical assistance and other expenses incurred during [a legislator's] term in connection with the duties of his office. Act 39, ง 4(a); see Consumer Party, 507 A.2d at 327 n. 3. Section 5 of Act 39 also provided for an unvouchered expense allowance in a total amount of $5,000, but payable mid-term, in monthly allotments over a one-year time period from December 1, 1983 until November 30, 1984. See Act 39, ง 5(a); Consumer Party, 507 A.2d at 327 n. 4. In addition, Officers of both the Senate and the House of Representatives were to receive additional amounts of unvouchered expenses for the same one-year time period. Act 39, ง 5(b), (c); Consumer Party, 507 A.2d at 327 n. 4. The citizen-taxpayer appellants in Consumer Party appealed from a Commonwealth Court order which, on summary judgment, upheld the constitutionality of Act 39. After reviewing and rejecting various procedural challenges raised under Article III, this Court turned to the appellants' challenge to Act 39's legislative unvouchered expense provision. The appellants had argued in the Commonwealth Court only that the provision violated Article III, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, entitled Changes in Term of Office or Salary Prohibited, and which provides that: No law shall extend the term of any public officer, or increase or diminish his salary or emoluments, after his election or appointment. We held that this challenge was meritless because the more specific provision in Article II, Section 8 exclusively covers mid-term compensation increases for the Legislature. Consumer Party, 507 A.2d at 335-36 (citing Snyder v. Barber, 378 Pa. 377, 106 A.2d 410, 411 (1954) (Article III, Section 27 (formerly numbered 13) does not apply to the members of the Legislature since their compensation is dealt with in a separate part of the Constitution, namely, Art. II, sec. 8.)). The Consumer Party Court then went on to note that, in their brief on appeal, the appellants attempted to raise a new claim alleging that the unvouchered expense provision violated Article II, Section 8. We determined that this distinct issue was not properly before the Court because it was never raised in the complaint below nor did the appellants seek to amend their complaint to raise the claim. Id. at 336. Notwithstanding this waiver holding, the Consumer Party Court went on to address and reject the Article II, Section 8 challenge on the merits, without stating if the discussion was intended as dictum, an alternative holding, or merely to provide guidance for future cases. The Court noted that Article II, Section 8 prohibits mid-term increases in legislative salary or mileage, but is silent about unvouchered expense allowances. The Court understood the (waived) challenge before it to be that the increased expense allowance during the legislative term provided for in the Compensation Act is additional `salary.' Engaging in a plain meaning analysis, the Court found that this argument ignored the clear differences in the terms salary and unvouchered expense allowances, as the former entailed compensation for services performed, while the latter covered an amount furnished to pay for expenses incurred in the performance of those services. The Court also noted that expense allowances for legislators had been provided by statute since 1956, and that there was also statutory precedent for mid-term augmentation of such allowances. Id. at 336-37. The Court then examined the nature of expense allowances. The Court highlighted the disadvantages of a system where an employee is required to submit vouchers for all expenses, including: the concomitant bookkeeping burden a vouchered system requires for the employer, the time-lag between the employee's expenditure and reimbursement by the employer, and the time expended by the employee in maintaining accurate expense records. The Court further noted that an unvouchered system, providing for a fixed allowance, avoids these burdens: [t]he time and expense involved in bookkeeping is eliminated and the employee is able to devote his full attention to his duties. Id. The Court also recognized that an employee's unvouchered expenditures might be more or less than the fixed allowance, but concluded that such variations were not problematic: As long as the expense allowance fixed is reasonably related to actual expenses, the lack of mathematical precision inherent in such a system does not present a problem. Id. at 337. Finally, the Consumer Party Court considered the appellants' argument that the unvouchered expense allowance was unreasonable and in reality a veiled salary increase which violated Article II, Section 8. The Court did not reject this claim out of hand, but did so for the following, specific reasons: Appellants offer no basis for the conclusion that the expense allowance is not needed and will not be used to pay for the legitimate expenses of the members of the General Assembly. As we previously outlined, the use of expense allowances has long been a tradition in the legislature. Instead appellants argue that those legislators should bear the burden of proving that the expense allowance is reasonable. We disagree with that novel assertion. As we stated above, a party challenging the constitutionality of an act of the General Assembly bears a heavy burden of proof, and legislation will not be declared unconstitutional unless it clearly, palpably and plainly violates the Constitution. Here appellants utterly failed to make any showing that the expense allowance is a sham. This additional argument is therefore meritless. Id. at 337-38 (citations and footnote omitted). In the twenty years since Consumer Party was decided, the Commonwealth Court has twice been called upon to assess Article II, Section 8 challenges to pieces of legislation involving official compensation, legislation that also authorized legislative unvouchered expenses. In both instances, the lower court looked to Consumer Party for guidance and ultimately rejected the constitutional challenge. It is notable that, in both cases, further review was not sought before this Court. See Stilp, 699 A.2d 1353; Kennedy, 119 Pa.Cmwlth. 24, 546 A.2d 733. In Kennedy, the challenged legislation, among other subjects, increased the salaries of legislators by $12,000, to a total of $47,000 per annum, effective after the next election. The legislation also provided for a mid-term unvouchered expense allowance to be paid monthly in the interim, and in an amount equal to the future salary increase ( i.e., $1,000 per month). Applying Consumer Party, the en banc panel held that the unvouchered expenses were not a salary hike and thus did not violate Article II, Section 8. In so holding, the Kennedy court noted that Consumer Party had: emphasized the distinction between salary and expenses; taught that, as long as the expense allowance is reasonably related to actual expenses, mathematical precision is unnecessary; and placed the burden of proving unreasonableness upon the challenger. The en banc panel then summarily rejected the claim as follows: In this case, Petitioners' complaint does not plead that the $1,000.00 expense increase is unreasonable and that a lesser amount would be reasonable. Instead, it attacks, on constitutional grounds, the increase in its entirety as one which is, in reality, a salary hike. We conclude that the above-quoted language [from Consumer Party ] is controlling upon the issue presented here and, thus, fatal to Petitioners' theory of a constitutional violation of Article II, section 8. Kennedy, 546 A.2d at 737. The Commonwealth Court also rejected a similar constitutional challenge in Stilp, 699 A.2d 1353. The public official compensation legislation at issue in that case (Act 51 of 1995) again provided for a mid-term legislative unvouchered expense allowance, to be paid monthly, and in an amount equal to the legislative salary increase made effective following the next election. [34] The legislation further provided to Senators who were elected in 1994 continued unvouchered expenses from December 1, 1996 until November 30, 1998 in an amount equal to their salary increase. Citing Consumer Party and Kennedy, the panel rejected Stilp's argument that the increase in expense allowances should be considered a salary increase on grounds that the increase was calculated under the same formula used for the legislators' cost-of-living adjustments [COLAs]: Merely because the expense allowances and COLAs are determined by using the same formula does not automatically transform the expense allowances into additional salary. Moreover, the COLAs and the expense allowances are calculated using the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers. Section 4 of the Law. In our view, it is not unreasonable to augment the Legislators' expense allowance and salary in proportion to actual increases in the cost of living measured by the consumer price index. Id. at 1357. Finally, the panel also rejected Stilp's argument that the unvouchered expense allowances were not reasonably related to actual expenses incurred by legislators: A fair reading of Consumer Party does support the view that an unreasonable expense allowance could be unconstitutional. The Consumer Party Court indicated that a plaintiff asserting that an expense allowance is unreasonable has a heavy burden to prove that the challenged expense allowance is, in reality, not needed and not intended to pay for the legitimate expenses of Legislators, and that it is a sham designed to hide a salary increase. Stilp, however, has not averred any facts in his complaint that could support a cause of action on the theory that the Act 51 expense allowance is unreasonable. Id. (footnote omitted). Act 44 is similar to the legislation at issue in Consumer Party, Kennedy and Stilp in that the challenged provision provides for mid-term payments for unvouchered expenses (not salary or mileage); the unvouchered expense provision is contained in a bill establishing an increase in legislative salaries to take effect after the next election; and the unvouchered expense allowance expires once the legislative salary increase takes effect. There are notable distinctions, however. First, Act 44's unvouchered expense provision does not state an absolute dollar amount of expenses to be afforded legislators. Instead, the amount of the allowance is determined by a formula that refers precisely to the future increase in legislative salary, i.e., the dollar difference between pre-Act 44 legislative salaries and the new salaries that would take effect following the next relevant legislative election. Second, with respect to legislative leaders, the corresponding raw dollar amount of the unvouchered expense allowance was substantially more than was at issue in any of the previous cases. Under the formula adopted by Act 44, the future salary of rank-and-file members of the General Assembly would rise over $11,000, from just under $70,000 per year to just over $81,000 per year. Thus, the mid-term unvouchered expenses authorized by the Act are in excess of $11,000 for each rank-and-file legislator. The amount of mid-term unvouchered expenses made available to legislative leaders and committee chairs, however, was much more dramatic. For example, Act 44 adopted a formula that raised the salaries of the Speaker of the House and the Senate President pro tempore by well over $30,000 per year, and made that very same amount immediately available to those legislators in the guise of mid-term unvouchered expenses. This Court asked the parties to brief the question of whether we should reconsider or overrule Consumer Party and Stilp, Treasurer Casey, and Stilp's amici affirmatively request that we do so. The doctrine of stare decisis maintains that for purposes of certainty and stability in the law, a conclusion reached in one case should be applied to those which follow, if the facts are substantially the same, even though the parties may be different. Burke v. Pittsburgh Limestone Corp., 375 Pa. 390, 100 A.2d 595, 598 (1953). While stare decisis serves invaluable and salutary principles, it is not an inexorable command to be followed blindly when such adherence leads to perpetuating error. See Mayle, 388 A.2d at 720 ([T]he doctrine of stare decisis is not a vehicle for perpetuating error, but rather a legal concept which responds to the demands of justice and, thus, permits the orderly growth processes of the law to flourish.). On the other hand, we recognize the importance of reliance on settled jurisprudence when asked to overturn precedent, and thus there is much force in the legislative leaders' argument that they rely on this Court's interpretation of the law and precedent when crafting legislation, and that such reliance should not be undercut except for good reason. Preliminarily, we should note that, although it is not clear whether the analysis articulated and applied in discussing the Article II, Section 8 challenge in Consumer Party was intended as dicta, general guidance, or an alternative holding, we would not seek to distinguish or narrow it on grounds that it lacked precedential value. The Court saw fit to discuss the constitutional issue, without objection from any participating Justice; the discussion was offered as an explanation of why [n]o purpose would be served in permitting amendment of the complaint to add the waived argument; the issue thus discussed was an important one obviously capable of recurrence; and it has been relied upon. Thus, we shall consider the case square-on. Consumer Party assumed an appropriate deference to the judgment of the General Assembly with respect to mid-term increases in expense allowances, in part because of the salutary presumption of constitutionality, and in part because the Court perceived the legitimate role that unvouchered expenses play where they bear a reasonable relationship to actual expenses. Indeed, the Court addressed at length the putative advantages in not requiring a dollar-for-dollar accounting of expenses. The Court's analysis, however, did not purport to approve of any and all systems covering mid-term unvouchered expenses. To the contrary, the Court made clear that such expenses must bear a reasonable relationship to actual expenses. We see no constitutional infirmity in this general standard as adopted in Consumer Party. Expenses are different from salary. There is, of course, much to be said for transparency in government, particularly when it comes to expenditures, and specific accounting procedures promote that transparency even if such a system requires an expenditure of time and money for accounting purposes. But, absent constitutional infirmity, it is not this Court's role to dictate to a coordinate, coequal branch of government how best to approach the task of accounting for legitimate expenses. Thus, we continue to believe that, as a general matter, unvouchered expense allowances are not per se unconstitutional. Accordingly, we reaffirm the core reasonable relationship standard which was adopted in Consumer Party. [35] Having said this, however, we have no difficulty in finding that the unvouchered expense allowance provided for in Act 44 is constitutionally infirm as it does not bear a reasonable relationship to the actual expenses incurred by individual legislators. To better frame the inquiry, we begin by emphasizing what the Court in Consumer Party did not say. In point of fact, the amount of the unvouchered expense allowance at issue in Consumer Party was not the same as the future legislative salary increase provided in that legislation (the salary increase was $10,000, while the unvouchered expense allowance was half that amount). More importantly, this Court never held, stated, or implied that any particular amount authorized for mid-term unvouchered expenses was constitutionally valid under the reasonable relationship standard and Article II, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Equally as important, and contrary to the present argument of the Speaker, this Court certainly did not hold, state or imply that mid-term unvouchered expense allowances for the Legislature comply with Article II, Section 8 so long as they are in the same amount as a future salary increase included in the same legislation. Thus, when the Speaker asks for a dependable Article II, Section 8 ruling on the continued constitutionality of those unvouchered expense allocations in the amount of the future pay raise, Speaker Perzel's Brief at 26 (emphasis added), he has misperceived the inquiry. Consumer Party never said or suggested that such a system was constitutionally valid. Senator Jubelirer, in his summary of Consumer Party, notes the reasonable relationship test stated therein, but he never argues that such a relationship exists with respect to Act 44. Speaker Perzel, on the other hand, never acknowledges this standard set forth in Consumer Party, instead focusing upon the facts alone, and suggesting incorrectly that the case thereby stands for the proposition that mid-term unvouchered expenses are constitutional under Article II, Section 8 so long as they are in the same amount as the future legislative salary increase provided in the legislation. Because the legislative leaders overlook or misconstrue the actual holding of Consumer Party, they provide no relevant rebuttal to Stilp's claim. [36] This Court recognizes that, as the challenger of presumptively constitutional legislation, Stilp properly bears the burden of proof here. Consumer Party, 507 A.2d at 337. However, it is notable that the legislative parties do not dispute his claim that the unvouchered expenses authorized by Act 44 are not reasonably related to the actual, and otherwise-unreimbursed, expenses incurred by legislators in the discharge of their public duties. Moreover, if the unvouchered expense allowance could plausibly be explained as intended to cover actual expenses, rather than to serve as additional salary, we have no doubt that this proposition would be an easy matter for the legislative parties to demonstrate. And, as the parties uniquely in a position to provide such proof, the failure to so argue, or to forward such a proffer, is significant notwithstanding Stilp's ultimate burden. Also, with respect to Stilp's burden of proof, we are presented with arguments that were not forwarded or discussed in Consumer Party, including Stilp's focus on the fact that the staggered timing of the expiration of the unvouchered expenses prove they serve as additional salary. Stilp also properly relies on the fact, which was not available to the challengers in Consumer Party, of intervening legislation, such as was at issue in Kennedy and Stilp, which tied the amount of mid-term provisions for unvouchered expenses precisely to the amount provided as a future increase in legislative compensation, and provided that the unvouchered expenses would expire once the new salaries took effect. The practice has become so fixed, indeed, that the Speaker, in this case, has misread Consumer Party itself as approving any amount of mid-term unvouchered expense allowance so long as the amount is the same as the future increase in salary, even though the case said no such thing, and the facts could not have supported such a holding. [37] In any event, any claim of a congruence between actual unreimbursed expenses incurred by legislators and the unvouchered allowances provided under Act 44 to defray those expenses would challenge belief, and particularly with respect to the unvouchered expense allowances made available to legislative leaders. The $11,000 provided the rank-and-file was on top of, and well in excess of, the $7,500 already provided for vouchered expenses, and indeed represented approximately 16% of their then-authorized salaries. The amount of unvouchered expenses provided legislative leaders (the Speaker and Senate President pro tempore, and the majority and minority leaders), meanwhile, was well in excess of $30,000 (three times the unvouchered expenses provided to the rank-and-file), and represented over 30% of their existing salaries. In light of Stilp's unrebutted argument, appellees' silence on Consumer Party's reasonable relationship test, the reference to the new salary formula to compute the mid-term unvouchered expense allowance, the dollar-for-dollar congruence between the unvouchered expense allowance and the new salary formula, the fact that the expense allotment expires once the new salary takes effect, and the sheer amount of the authorized allowance, we hold that Stilp has carried his burden of proving that the legislative unvouchered expense allowance provided in Act 44, ง 2 (amending 46 Pa.C.S. ง 1107), in fact represented a mid-term increase in legislative salary which clearly, palpably, and plainly violated the proscription in Article II, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Accordingly, we will grant the relief requested by Stilp, in part, and declare Section 2 of Act 44 amending 46 Pa.C.S. ง 1107 unconstitutional.