Totalitarian Pennsylvania Update.

And now for something completely serious...

It seems some judges do not want to give up the unconstitutional pay raise even after the PA Legislature repealed it. So what do they do? Sue.

That is no surprise, since the judges are more insulated from the wrath of those over whom they lord it. Or are they?

Remember Russell Nigro or suffer the same fate, ye high and mighty, ye kleptocrats!

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether the pay raise legislation that passed last summer - and was repealed last month - was constitutional, and whether state and county judges should get the additional salary despite the repeal.

The court on Thursday said it would hear two cases - a challenge by political activist Gene Stilp that had been dismissed as moot by Commonwealth Court, and a lawsuit by a judge seeking to reinstate the higher judicial salaries.

The order indicating the court will take the cases, in which Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy did not participate, said it would review the propriety of how the General Assembly passed the law giving pay raises to officials in all three branches of state government.

The court said it wanted to consider whether it was legal for lawmakers to collect their own raises immediately in the form of "unvouchered expenses," rather than wait until their next election, as the state constitution requires.

The case also will examine whether the law ran afoul of requirements in the state constitution that laws reflect a bill's original purpose, that legislation be put before a committee before it goes before the entire Legislature, and that bills must pertain to a single subject and be considered on three separate days.

The justices also will decide whether the pay-raise repeal violated the state constitution's requirement that judges' pay not be diminished "during their terms of office, unless by law applying generally to all salaried officers of the Commonwealth."

The court agreed to hear Stilp's lawsuit as well as a Commonwealth Court case filed by Philadelphia County Common Pleas Judge John W. Herron, who wants to revive the judicial pay raise only. The decision to take the case was made Thursday and came to light when the attorney general's office announced it on Tuesday.

One issue will be determining what the state constitution's framers had in mind when they insulated judges against certain pay cuts, said Robert C. Heim, Herron's attorney.

"I believe what they had in mind was a financial crisis, a situation where the commonwealth was threatened with bankruptcy or something very, very close to that," Heim said Tuesday.

Russ Diamond, head of PACleanSweep, a group that helped organize a rally against the pay raise and is working to unseat incumbents, said he was encouraged by the court's decision to take the case.

"We have the whole issue of them being biased in some way, because they'll be affected themselves. But I think the state Supreme Court is the proper place to hear this case and to hash out these issues once and for all," Diamond said.

The July 7 pay-raise law, passed in the dead of night without debate or public input, increased the salaries of more than 1,300 judges, lawmakers and senior executive branch officials. All judges - from district court to the Supreme Court - got pay raises of 11 to 15 percent, and state legislators increased their own pay by up to 54 percent.

Stilp's home phone was not accepting messages Tuesday morning and his cellular telephone was not working. (Thanks to phillyburbs.com for the heads up.)