Raises had mixed effect at polls

Low turnout makes '05 election results hard to read.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Tuesday's statewide balloting was as interesting as an off-year election gets, but as a bellwether of Pennsylvania's Pay Raise Rebellion, it has limitations.
Clearly, voter anger over the Legislature's middle-of-the night pay grab this summer turned what is usually a routine process of re-electing judges on its head, resulting in the first ouster of a member of the state's highest court.
Supreme Court Justice Russell M. Nigro faced no re-election challenger -- only a yes-no retention vote. But he and fellow Justice Sandra Schultz Newman were targeted by citizen groups that are leading the charge to oust incumbent legislators in 2006 and repeal the law that boosted the pay of legislators, judges and other state officials.
The activists' message -- that, as justices, Nigro and Newman should be thrown off the bench for past court rulings that upheld the rules and procedures that keep many of the Legislature's actions out of public view -- was the only apparent explanation for Nigro's defeat and Newman's surprisingly thin margin in winning a second 10-year term.
But few Pennsylvanians went to the polls -- 16 percent of an eligible 9.6 million -- and the results were spotty.
NIgro's experience
Nigro, a Democrat, can trace his defeat to parts of the state where the anti-pay-raise fervor is hottest: not only the rock-ribbed Republican south-central region, where he was opposed nearly 3-1 in Cumberland County and nearly 4-1 in Dauphin County, but in the Democrat-dominated southwest section, too.
He swept his home turf in the southeast, usually the crown jewel for any statewide political campaign, winning Philadelphia by nearly 3-1 and the four Republican counties that surround it by margins as large as 2-1.
But turnout was higher in areas less friendly to his candidacy. Nearly 20 percent of eligible voters in Pittsburgh and the rest of Allegheny County cast ballots, in contrast with 6 percent among Philadelphians.
What should have been Nigro's power base became a power vacuum, holding his "yes" votes to a futile 47 percent.
Among legislators eying re-election bids next year -- when the grass-roots group PACleanSweep plans to put up dozens of challengers who will campaign on the pay-raise issue -- reaction to Tuesday's election results varied.
Lawmakers' views
"I don't think it changes" much, said Sen. Vincent Fumo, D-Philadelphia. "I think those legislators who were afraid before [the election] are going to have some increase in their fear.
"It depends on where you live and who you are," said Fumo, a Capitol fixture for more than 27 years. "I think [Senate President Pro Tempore] Bob Jubelirer should worry. John Perzel [the House speaker from Philadelphia]? No worries."
Rep. Patrick Fleagle, who voted for the pay raise and is among the majority of legislators who took the money right away through "unvouchered expenses," already faces an opponent in next spring's GOP primary who is making the pay raise an issue. Although he's from Franklin County, where a majority voted against Nigro, Fleagle hopes his 17-year record will help him win another term.
"It seems the closer you get to the district and the more personal people are, the less likely they are to be angry," he said.
Jubelirer is a Republican from Blair County, where Nigro squeaked by with a margin of a few dozen votes. A 31-year Senate veteran who was the prime mover behind the pay-raise bill, he now says its approval was "a mistake" and that repealing the law is the right thing to do.
Jubelirer also faces a likely challenge in next year's primary -- a campaign that he acknowledges "probably won't be very pretty."
"I've been here 31 years and I've never seen anything quite like this," he said. "I've learned a hard lesson. ... I listened to what was out there and clearly my gut, everything I've ever learned in life, told me that this [pay-raise law] was wrong and we needed to move on."
XThis article was written by Peter Jackson, the Capitol correspondent for The Associated Press in Harrisburg.
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