I became aware Thursday of a campaign by Gene Stilp to organize a grass-roots effort by Pennsylvania taxpayers to repeal the money grab by our conniving state legislators and the governor, who signed the pay raise bill.
Gene Stilp is a Harrisburg-area resident who sued the state, governor and treasurer in 1995, the last time the politicos gave themselves a big fat pay raise. (That's not counting the automatic annual cost-of-living increases they voted themselves).
Mr. Stilp told The Associated Press he intends to sue again to overturn the latest travesty. The legislators are using the same sneaky tactic they invented in 1995 to bypass the state Constitution, which prohibits them from collecting the self-approved raise right away.
The Constitution says the scoundrels who gave themselves pay raises of 16 to 34 percent will have to wait until December 2006 to start collecting. But these unscrupulous "public servants" have decided to circumvent the Constitution by pretending that their pay hikes are "unvouchered expenses" so they can sneak the money into their pockets a year earlier.
Mr. Stilp's lawsuit was thrown out by a three-judge Commonwealth Court panel in 1997, but the court never ruled on the merits of the case. The fact that judges are also getting pay raises don't bode well, but maybe there are a few honest elected officials left in Pennsylvania and we can put a stop to this unconstitutional theft of taxpayer money and flagrant betrayal of the public trust by our so-called lawmakers.
Mr. Stilp has set up a Web site to help organize opposition to the highway robbery perpetrated on unsuspecting Pennsylvania taxpayers.
Visit the Web site at http://www.genestilp.blogspot.com to learn more about the campaign to expose these charlatans. And by all means, spread to the word to every victim of this crime: your relatives, friends, neighbors and co-workers in Pennsylvania.
And write to your state senator and representative and tell them there are too many witnesses to their crime to get away with it. Tell them to enjoy their pay raise for the next year because you will vote them out of office in 2006.
2 comments:
One of the keys to overturning the pay raise will be the necessity of a lot of Pennsylvanians working together to confront each of their respective legislators. Folks from all sides, consevatives and liberals must work together on this. And most key is upending the curious phenomenon whereby people give their own legislators a break because they know them or are friends. It is important that friends of legislators and key supporters be the most vehement and demand that their legislators line up to sign a new piece of legislation that rescinds the pay increase returning it to the level they were at as of July 4, 2005.
Let's stop talking about opposing legislative pay raises, and let's start talking about opposing legislative pay.
Legislators should not only work for nothing: they should be required to pay at least $5000 a year for the privilege of serving.
We all know wealthy people run everything anyway, so let's put them directly in charge where they will be held accountable.
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