HARRISBURG — Moonlighting as private lawyers helps some Pennsylvania lawmakers supplement their $78,314 public salaries — a practice that came close to being severely curtailed late Wednesday.

The House voted unanimously in favor of a Republican-backed measure to prevent members from being paid by lobbying firms. But Democrats had second thoughts, and largely along party lines reversed the vote.

Republicans framed the reversal as Democrats' preserving the ability of state legislators to work for lobbying firms, but Democrats argued the amendment violated the constitutional separation of powers by regulating the legal profession.

"Pennsylvanians, on a very commonsense level, will not be able to accept that there's a constitutional right for legislators to be lobbyists," said Rep. John Maher, R-Allegheny, who pushed for the ban.

House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, noted there are no lawmakers among the state's registered lobbyists.

"There should never be an opportunity where a member of the Legislature is a registered lobbyist," Eachus said.

Rep. Tony DeLuca, D-Allegheny, said he plans to reintroduce legislation to limit lawmakers' outside earned income.

"When you have attorneys, you have insurance people, when you have accountants working for these different outfits, there's a tendency to lean their way because of the fact they're in that industry," DeLuca said. "And I don't think that does the public justice."

Lawyer-legislators were taking pains Thursday to point out that not all lawyers are lobbyists, and not all law firms do lobbying.

"You can make money, you can go do DUI cases, criminal cases if you want, real estate, property," said Rep. Will Gabig, R-Cumberland, a former prosecutor who does not currently practice law. "But when you work for somebody who's registered as a lobbyist, if you're actually getting money from a lobby firm, that's an inherent conflict of interest."

The issue of lawmaker-lobbyists landed before the State Ethics Commission last year, after Rep. Bob Mensch, R-Montgomery, sought an opinion regarding his unpaid role promoting the Greater Upper Perkiomen Valley Community Assessment and Economic Development Plan.

"I have helped them get grants, but it's to benefit the community," Mensch said.

The panel ruled the Ethics Act does not prevent Mensch from seeking or lobbying for state grants for the project. Mensch said he does not consider what he did lobbying.

In the ongoing federal corruption trial of former Sen. Vincent Fumo, D-Philadelphia, a Verizon executive testified Fumo pressured him to steer legal work during deregulation talks with the state. While in office, Fumo collected more than $900,000 from a Philadelphia-based law firm, mostly for referring business to the firm.

Outside legal work also arose in the charges filed last summer by the state attorney general's office against 12 people associated with the House Democratic caucus. Jeff Foreman, then a high-ranking caucus lawyer, was accused of doing private legal work from his Capitol offices.