Pennsylvania lawmakers are putting democracy to the test. And, if history is any indication, things don't look very good. At least from the voters' perspective. From the lawmakers' perspective, things are just fine.

Earlier this month, state lawmakers gave themselves an $11,000 pay raise. Most Pennsylvanians do not feel the 16 percent pay boost was deserved, nor do they approve of its last minute, middle-of-the-night passage with no debate or public input.

Voters are also bothered by the back-door method of accepting the additional money, in clear violation of the intention of a provision state Constitution barring lawmakers from accepting pay hikes until after the next election. It might not be illegal, but it is clearly wrong.

It has been a stunning example of arrogance that state lawmakers would vote themselves such a generous pay raise at this time, and in how they handled the vote and then in the deceitful method they plan to use to advance themselves the money before it can be officially available.

Yet, chances are, nothing will happen. The same lawmakers will get re-elected in the next election, whether they voted for the pay raise or not.

Lawmakers might as well be planning a $100,000 pay hike for next July, because voters have so far failed to demonstrate that lawmakers will suffer any negative consequences from doing something universally opposed by the citizens of this state.

November 2006 is the next opportunity for Pennsylvania voters to express their disapproval of the arrogance and poor performance in Harrisburg. Even if every newspaper, television and radio station in the state reminds voters in the weeks and days before Election Day about the July 2005 middle-of-the-night pay raise vote and dubious "unvouchered expenses" trickery - most incumbents will probably be re-elected. Given a re-election rate approaching 98 percent, lawmakers appear to be immune from voter wrath. People do complain, they rant, they write letters to the editor, but they don't vote out an incumbent.

November 2006 is an opportunity to change that and install some sense of accountability in Harrisburg.

Prior to the next election, an alternative solution to the pay-raise arrogance might be a grass-roots movement to put an initiative before voters that would ban future pay increases, impose term limits on lawmakers or reduce the size of the state legislature - the second largest in the United States, and the costliest in the nation.

But, again, state lawmakers have nothing to worry about. While 23 other states and the District of Columbia have a provision allowing voters to place statues or constitutional amendments on the ballot, Pennsylvania is not among those 23 states.

The only ballot initiatives that appear before voters in Pennsylvania come from the state legislature. And what are the chances that these same self-serving lawmakers will approve a measure that reduces their pay or benefits or, worse yet, places limits on their jobs-for-life?

The only recourse voters have is in the voting booth. The most fundamental right to self-governance has been lost due to a combination of apathy, cynicism, laziness and resignation that nothing will change. Lawmakers know this and can, with cold calculation evidenced by the pay raise vote, do whatever they please.

Even with near-universal voter disapproval, even outrage, the men and women in Harrisburg believe, or know, they have little to fear from voters. Their job approval ratings are low, but they continue to get re-elected.

The July pay raise vote will set up a test for democracy in November 2006. If voters don't reject a decent percentage of incumbent lawmakers, democracy's obituary will have been written - and $500,000 salaries for lawmakers will soon follow.