Crowd protests lawmakers’ pay hikes
HARRISBURG – Lawmakers were holed up in caucus meetings and voting in an afternoon floor session for most of Monday, as more than a thousand people descended on the Capitol for the first day of fall session to demand a repeal of the legislative pay raise. Constituents from across the state were both angry and humored by their fanfare as they rallied outside in the drippy rain beside a 25-foot inflatable pig and a mock, suited lawmaker who’d been tarred and feathered and strung across a cardboard poll.
A man sat on a toilet covered with a copy of the state constitution, and signs read “You loot we boot,” “Pig Roast Election Day 06,” and “You’re elected to serve us not screw us.”
While lawmakers had been hearing from angry constituents all summer after the July 7 vote, Monday’s rally was the first time opponents had joined together for a public show of force.
The predominant complaint among the crowd was the sheer size of the Legislative pay raise, which bumped lawmakers’ base salaries by $11,000 to $81,000 a year. That amounts a 16 to 54 percent increase when salaries for committee chairs, leaders, and deputy caucus whips are factored in.
“These pay raises are not right,” said Newville resident Richard Deihl, holding the latter sign. “I’m on Social Security and I don’t get raises like that. If I get $5 extra they take it away from me.”
“Oink, oink, oink, oink,” screamed the crowd, who blew whistles and rang cow bells. “Go clean your offices out.”
Later, many moved inside to present a 129,000-signature petition to repeal the pay raise to the offices of the House Speaker, Senate Pro Tempore, and the governor.
The officials sent their spokespeople out to accept and answer to the petitions, but protesters, led by Harrisburg talk radio host Bob Durgin of WHP 580, yelled “coward” for the officials themselves to appear, to no avail.
“The Speaker believes members of the General Assembly deserve a pay raise,” Beth Williams, spokeswoman for House Speaker John Perzel, R-Philadelphia told the crowd.
Williams said that constituents should go to their lawmakers to ask for support of the two pay raise repeal bills.
Earlier in the day, Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Sam Smith, R- Jefferson had this to say about the rally as it was being set up: “People come to express themselves as they do when various issues touch them. At times members are going to agree with them and at times not.”
In what some claim as an unusual level of activity for the first day back, members were in caucus for hours on end and then had an active floor schedule. The House passed a bill to increase death benefits for emergency responders and National Guardsmen and women, which is on its way to the governor for final approval. And the House approved an extension in the acceptance of oversees absentee ballots to help soldiers.
Rep. Paul Clymer, R-Bucks, said House Republicans discussed the pay raise at length in caucus, but members are split on where they stand.
“There was a general discussion on the issue and I don’t think there was a direction either way on the issue. It was a mix,” he said. “I think things will be sorted out later, in months, or whenever the issue is brought up.”
Organizers worried that rainy weather and a Monday workday could have dampened the size of the crowd to a couple hundred. But as the rally got under way, many more arrived. The Department of General Services estimated the crowd to be between 1,500 to 2,000 people, still far less, however, than previous rallies over hot-button issues like abortion in the late 1980s.
Speakers representing a diverse set of conservative and liberal groups said they’d placed their personal political views on other issues to the side, in order to have a unified voice on the pay raise.
They called for accountability, a more responsive state government, and reform of the system.
“We all work on issues we have to get through to these folks up here and we know it’s becoming more and more difficult. Our voices are being drown out by special interests,” said Bonita Hoke, executive director of the League of Women Voters, who was setting up a voter registration booth. “Here we’re going to park our interests at the door and figure out how to get democracy back into Pennsylvania.”
Some called for not the just an overthrow of the entire legislature, but also a removal of two Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices – Russell Nigro and Sandra Shultz Newman who are up for retention elections this November.
Neither were directly involved in the pay raise vote, but Chief Justice Ralph Cappy lobbied for a raise for Pennsylvania judges and once called the public reaction “knee-jerk.” And the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled a decade ago in favor of allowing unvouchered expenses, which permit lawmakers to take their pay midterm despite restrictive language in the state constitution.
“Our governor and General Assembly act the way they do because the Supreme Court said it’s OK,” Tim Potts, founder of Democracy Rising PA, told the crowd. “It’s time to appeal to the court of common sense.”
Bucks County residents Rob Lusch and Greg Garber unsuccessfully attempted to visit the three Republican Bucks lawmakers who voted in favor the pay raise: Sen. Joe Conti, Rep. Matt Wright, and Rep. Tom Corrigan. None were in their offices, but Conti’s chief of staff sat with them for a few moments as they made their pitch.
“It’s sickening,” said Lusch about the pay raise and Conti’s vote. “It shows the state is rotting from the inside out.
The chief of staff answered that she hoped that Conti’s record would speak well for his work in Harrisburg. The two from Bucks then handed her a “pay raise integrity pledge” asking for his promise to support a repeal of the pay raise. She took it, but gave them no promise.
Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or ahawkes@calkins-media.com