Arrogant legislators taste humble pie, but the job of winning back the state is not done
Is there a more satisfying feeling than seeing a truly arrogant person chow down on a slice of humble pie?
The 253 members of the Pennsylvania House of Lords were force-fed the entire pie in recent days. The good guys — the people of Pennsylvania — won this one. The bad guys — overpaid, underachieving state legislators — got what’s coming to them. Actually, what’s coming to them is ouster from office.
The decision to repeal the July 7 pay raises of 16 percent to 54 percent was the least the larcenous legislators could do. We’re back to square one. We’re back to having the fourth highest paid state legislature in the country, but by many accounts, the least effective group of politicians ever assembled under the Capitol dome. You’ll recall that only 19 percent of the bills these paper-pushers sponsor each year ever become law.
The legislators didn’t repeal the pay raise because they saw the light. They didn’t do it because they were concerned about the plight of the average Pennsylvanian struggling to pay for gas to drive to work or oil to heat their homes. These bad boys did it because they were too many witnesses to the 2 a.m. raid on the state treasury. Tonight on "Cops" — Pennsylvania legislators caught on tape!
The Harrisburg Hogs gave the money back because they were cornered like rats. They had to do it to survive, to continue collecting twice the salary of the average working Pennsylvanian for a part-time job. A job that provides them with unequaled perks and even special IRS tax breaks available only to the politicians.
Internal polls by legislative leaders showed their approval ratings were lower than those of George W. Bush. In some cases, the approval numbers of state Senate party bosses like Robert Jubilirer and David Brightbill was half of the president’s. And Bush has the lowest approval ratings since Harry Truman was in the White House.
If you look at comments made to the Associated Press, some of the legislators get it. "We need to repent, repeal and reform," says Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Allegheny. "I think the people were heard on this. It was too much (money) in one shot, and that was heard loud and clear." — Sen. John Rafferty, R-Chester, on the public backlash against the pay raises.
But let’s not be fooled into a sense of complacency by the show of a white flag. Russ Diamond, founder of PACleanSweep, put the entire sorry pay raise episode into proper perspective when he told the AP, "If they did this once and we let them get away with it without a major change, then they will do it again. I assure you, they will do it again. Maybe not with a pay raise, but with something else. It's the process that needs (to be) fixed."
Pennsylvania residents won a surprising and significant victory this past week by forcing the pay-jackers to give back the money they lifted from the state treasury. But the war to restore Constitutional standards and Democratic principles to Pennsylvania is far from over.
The next important battle is Tuesday when voters have the opportunity to oust two members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Justices Russell Nigro and Sandra Schultz Newman are seeking retention for another 10 years on the court.
Many of the state’s newspapers have written editorials urging voters to vote "No" on the retention of these two judges. Citizens’ groups that want to see better government and more accountability in Harrisburg are urging voters to vote "No" to retain Nigro and Newman. The Libertarian Party, the state’s third largest political party, is urging its members to reject Newman and Nigro.
I intend to vote "No" to retain these judges Tuesday. While Newman and Nigro were not directly involved in the vote to raise salaries for legislators, the governor and all of the state’s judges, Pennsylvania voters should not pass up an opportunity to start cleaning out the cesspool that is Harrisburg.
If voters oust Newman and Nigro on Tuesday and remove two more Supreme Court judges who will seek retention in 2006, we can change four of the seven members of the state Supreme Court in the space of one year.
The job of cleaning out the Harrisburg stables can be completed next May and November when all 103 members of the state House and 25 of the 50 state Senators face the voters. Gov. Ed Rendell is also up for reelection next year and voters should deny the worst governor in the country a second term to complete a clean sweep.
Rendell, who signed the pay raise into law on July 8, and the 253-member House of Lords held Pennsylvania taxpayers hostage for 118 days before voting to repeal the pay raise. That tells me these people cannot be trusted to govern this state. They knew what they did on July 7 was morally and Constitutionally wrong, but they did it anyway. They put their own self-interest ahead of the people they were elected to serve.
E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com
No comments:
Post a Comment