Shrink 'em, bounce 'em or sue 'em: "Thursday, July 28, 2005
By Brian O'Neill
Could it be that Pennsylvania's ruling caste has finally gone too far?
The backlash against America's Largest Full-Time State Legislature for its audacious midnight money grab is wide. But is the reaction to this 16 percent pay raise strong enough to last? Or will Pennsylvanians soon return to being the meek sheep we've always been?
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Shrink 'em, bounce 'em or sue 'em = Throw the bums out, And they're all bums.
This outrace is still a hot topic in the media. Let's fire a few new logs on the campfire and keep it burning.
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Shrink 'em, bounce 'em or sue 'em
Thursday, July 28, 2005
By Brian O'Neill
Could it be that Pennsylvania's ruling caste has finally gone too far?
The backlash against America's Largest Full-Time State Legislature for its audacious midnight money grab is wide. But is the reaction to this 16 percent pay raise strong enough to last? Or will Pennsylvanians soon return to being the meek sheep we've always been?
Like any budding revolution, this one is disorganized and already breaking into factions. In fact, it may be unified in none of its beliefs save two: This pay raise isn't right, and the Legislature must be stopped.
The three most prominent arguments can be summarized this way:
Throw the bums out, and they're all bums.
Russ Diamond, a 42-year-old businessman from suburban Harrisburg, doesn't want any legislators to keep their jobs. So he launched Operation Clean Sweep on this simple premise that he summarized on his Web site, www.pacleansweep.com.
"The current members of the General Assembly have slapped taxpayers in the face by awarding themselves a huge pay increase. While some members did vote 'no' on the increase, it is common knowledge that all votes were prearranged to protect vulnerable seats."
That's absolutely right. The party caucuses in each house set the vote up to assure its passage while making some of their own look good with "no" votes. That knowledge is important as you scan the stories on who voted yes and who voted no, who is keeping the money and who isn't, because behind all that smoke is the fact that the entire Legislature is collectively to blame. "No" voters clearly weren't persuasive, and therefore did not succeed in the jobs for which they were sent to Harrisburg. Let's send better people.
Diamond reported that more than 16,000 people have hit his Web site roughly 133,000 times. Some 800 have subscribed for regular alerts, and about 200 have signed up for a chat room, "an open rant and rave kind of thing."
Shrink this mess.
John Bogaard, 48, of Canonsburg, says the problem is we're sending too many overpaid people to Harrisburg.
Only California pays its legislators a higher wage, but its state House of 80 representatives is less than half the size of Pennsylvania's 203-member gas house. Throw in our relatively small population, and that means the California legislator represents seven times as many constituents as yours does.
When Bogaard compares Pennsylvania to Illinois and Ohio, the two states closest to ours in population, our state House still looks bloated.
Pennsylvania: 50 senators, 203 representatives
Illinois: 59 senators, 118 representatives
Ohio: 33 senators, 99 representatives
In other words, those Midwestern reps are answering the phone for about twice as many constituents. As for the Pennsylvania reps' argument that they want "only" half the pay of members of Congress, Bogaard suggest they then "service a district half the size of a congressional district. If this were so, our state House would shrink to 37 members."
This "Rolls Royce of state legislatures" promotes narrow, parochial interests, Bogaard says. "The interests of each small area hold more importance than what's good for an entire region."
By the way, if you ever wondered why we have so many legislators, it goes back to a wacky 19th-century theory that we should make the Legislature too big to bribe. A document from the state's last constitutional convention in 1967 and 1968 refers to reformers of the previous century doubling the size of the state House and increasing Senate membership by 50 percent.
"This change was not based on any prevailing theory of representation, but upon the assumption that it would be harder to corrupt the larger number!"
So much for that idea. Perhaps a new Legislature can call for a constitutional convention to shrink the General Assembly back to a reasonable size. That's a pretty good platform for challengers this November.
Sue 'em.
Until the next session of the General Assembly, this pay raise will be pocketed in the form of unvouchered expenses. That's because the state constitution bars legislators from increasing their salary in midterm.
"This is a subterfuge," says Duquesne University Law School professor Bruce Ledewitz. "You'd have to be an idiot not to see it."
Ledewitz isn't opposed to raising legislators' pay, but he says this sort of gamesmanship is precisely what the constitution was written to prevent.
"It's the court's job to strike it down even though their pay raise is at stake, too."
This sleazy legislation was written so any court ruling to overturn it will cancel pay raises not just for legislators but for judges and cabinet secretaries, too. Legislators are gambling that state Supreme Court justices are greedy enough not to do their jobs, Ledewitz said, but he does not believe that is true.
I'm still guessing it's going to be the voters' job to fix this in November. How about you?
(Brian O'Neill can be reached at boneill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1947.)
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