A partial victory is possible in Totalitarian Pennsylvania.

Legislative pay raise in danger
House, Senate vote to repeal, but both must reconcile differences before bill reaches Rendell's desk.


• Patriot-News: Critics hail vote
The euphoria of pay-raise critics reflected the 50-0 Senate vote early in the evening. Late last night, the House voted 196-2 to repeal, but tacked on an amendment that left the fate of the raise unresolved.


• Jubelier: Poison pill in House bill
The Republican leader of the state Senate says a House provision in the pay raise repeal linking the fate of lawmakers' pay to that of judges is a "poison pill" designed to derail it.

“The constitution says you cannot reduce the [compensation] of the judiciary,” said Senate President Robert Jubelirer, R-Blair, “the reason being so the General Assembly can’t blackmail the judiciary. Otherwise we could cut their salaries every time we disagree with them.”

The Senate and later the House voted last night to repeal the pay raise they enacted in the wee hours of July 7, but their differing versions of the bill must be resolved before the bill can advance to Gov. Ed Rendell for signature.

The House insisted that any judicial ruling overturning part of the legislation would invalidate all of it. The Senate was not willing to go along. Because the original pay raise affected state judges as well as Cabinet officials and lawmakers, repealing it under the House version would in effect reduce those judges' pay.


Would you like to know what sort of people we're dealing with here?

The raises moved Bill McIntyre, a 72-year-old Camp Hill man, to get involved in politics, something he had not done before.

McIntyre sent an e-mail "birthday greeting" to the General Assembly on the one-month anniversary of the pay-raise vote. He received this reply from Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Mellow, D-Lackawanna County: "Why don't you get a life." (Emphasis mine.)