Pennsylvania's lawmakers, particularly the Democratic and Republican leadership, might want to review the state constitution - particularly Article II, Section 8 - regarding pay raises.

Taken from the Pennsylvania Manual, the relevant section reads: "The members of the General Assembly shall receive such salary and mileage for regular or special sessions as shall be fixed by law, and no other compensation whatever, whether for service upon committee or otherwise. No member of either House shall during the term for which he may have been elected, receive any increase of salary, or mileage, under any law passed during such term."

Could the law be any more clear? In plain, easy-to-understand language, the Pennsylvania Constitution says lawmakers should not receive a pay increase until the term following the one in which the pay increase was passed. Because the lawmakers will have had to stand for re-election and there is - theoretically, at least - the chance that a new legislator could be elected, the constitution is clearly intending to prevent lawmakers from voting themselves raises.

Citizens from across the state should demand that their representatives in the House and Senate publicly explain their understanding of this simple paragraph from the state constitution. The pay-raise fiasco and the associated intentional sidestepping of the state constitution must not be forgotten by voters - whom most lawmakers have long since written off as irrelevant, disinterested and, apparently, stupid.

Seeing the exact wording of this constitutional provision makes it clear that the state legislature, by utilizing the back-door trick of "unvouchered expenses" to boost their income just a month after the pay hike vote was taken, is violating the state constitution.

Voters can surely see it - and they should refresh not only their memories, but also their indignation and anger when the next elections roll around. The primary and general elections in the spring and fall of 2006 should be a time for voters to oust incumbents, or to require incumbents to sign a pledge that they will pass a law specifically banning the use of unvouchered expenses.

Further, incumbents should be required to pledge that they will also pass a provision allowing for voter initiatives to be placed on the ballot in Pennsylvania. Citizens in 23 other states and the District of Columbia have this ability - but the citizens of Pennsylvania do not.

For any referendum to appear on Pennsylvania ballots, it must come through the state legislature. But what if citizens feel that the legislature has failed them and they want changes that would go against the personal or political self-interests of politicians in the House and Senate? Chances are, any referendum giving voters power to overrule lawmakers will never see the light of day in this state. That must change.

The people have the power to make changes by voting. But so far, citizens appear to have relinquished all of their power to lawmakers by consistently re-electing incumbents in every district of the state. Seeing their positions as jobs-for-life, most lawmakers have come to realize that the voters will not hold them accountable for acting against their - voters' - interests. That, too, must change.

The July pay-raise vote, carefully crafted behind closed doors with party leadership of both parties in collusion, and uniquely structured to survive court challenges by linking judges' raises to the fate of lawmakers' pay hikes, and passed without debate, advance notice or public input, was an act of blatant arrogance on the part of state lawmakers.

Based on the outrage continuing to boil up across the state, Pennsylvania lawmakers might have gone too far and awakened a sleeping giant - fed-up voters.

Lawmakers had expected, and are still hoping, that the pay-raise controversy will be long forgotten when the next elections arrive in 2006. That must not happen.