HARRISBURG — Tuesday marks the 10th anniversary of the legislative pay raise vote, a watershed moment in recent Pennsylvania political history.
The midnight vote by lawmakers on July 7, 2005, to give themselves a hefty pay raise on top of an annual cost-of-living bump has had far-reaching consequences.
The pay raise was an overreach of power by legislative leaders that spawned a voter backlash at the polls and then various county, state and federal political corruption probes. The pay raise was repealed by lawmakers several months after it was enacted.
For a quarter century leading up to 2005, legislative leaders of both parties had built up power through such devices as handing out “walking around money” to the rank and file in return for votes and punishing renegade lawmakers by taking away office space or committee spots.
That generation of leaders built up statewide or regional political machines, filling a vacuum left by the eclipse of county political chairmen when state patronage jobs dwindled in the late 1970s. They could count on longevity in power winning easily re-election at home and only rarely faced a challenge from within their caucus.
After the pay raise debacle, the leaders made frantic efforts to save incumbent lawmakers from being defeated in the 2006 elections. A record number of lawmakers, including two Senate leaders, went down to defeat anyway. The payment of bonuses to legislative staffers for campaign work led the wider state Bonusgate investigation into misuse of taxpayer money for campaign purposes.
Five legislative leaders holding power in 2005 were convicted or pleaded guilty to various corruption charges involving misuse of taxpayer money.
Two of them just got out of prison in recent weeks: former House Minority Whip Mike Veon, D-Beaver, and former House Appropriations Chairman Brett Feese, R-Lycoming.
The leaders who came to power after the pay raise lack the clout of their predecessors and are more attentive to the voices in their caucus. They are less secure in their tenure as seen with the caucus ouster of House Democratic Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, in 2010, defeat at the polls of House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, in 2010 and caucus ouster of Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Chester, in 2014.
However, one thing hasn’t happened in the decade following the pay raise. That’s the passage of tough new state laws to deter political corruption. Lawmakers have passed two sunshine laws, reinstated a lobbyist disclosure law and updated an open record statute in the name of reform.
But lawmakers decided they’d rather police themselves for transgressions than give more power to a prosecutor through a law.
The Senate adopted a rule barring political activity on legislative time, but made itself the enforcing agent. The House adopted a set of policies in that regard. The two chambers adopted rules banning cash gifts after a cash-for-favor sting involving Philadelphia lawmakers erupted last year.
Despite the pay raise repeal, lawmakers have done all right for themselves the salary front in the years since thanks to the annual COLA.
The base salary in 2005 was $69,648, activist Eric Epstein of Rock the Capitol said. The base salary in 2015 is $85,356.
The salary doesn’t include the cost for health care, per diems and pensions.