Robbing the Bank

The fires keep getting stoked in Pa. Especially as more people start digesting the 100 page Supreme Court decision.

Lawmakers violated the state Constitution when they took mid-term pay raises last year in the form of “unvouchered expenses,” the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday, but the court is not ordering the repayment of the illegal raises.

Instead, the court claims lawmakers who accepted the short-lived pay raise for up to four months during 2005 “acted in good faith reliance on the presumption” that the raise was legal and they could keep the cash.

The court also ordered reinstatement of pay raises for about 1,200 members of the judiciary, including the justice themselves, saying a measure that repealed those raises was “clearly, palpably and plainly unconstitutional.”

Nice. So if you're smarmy enough to take the "unvouchered expenses" you can keep them. Never mind that they're obviously unconstitutional. Quite a number of legislators took them, some returned the "pre-payment," (likely due to torches and pitchforks).

I wonder if you returned it, if you can reclaim it.

Looks like I"m going to have to update my lists. State House, State Senate.

Pennsylvania Posted by AlexC at September 15, 2006 11:35 AM