There is so much wrong with last week's decision by the state Supreme Court on the controversial legislative pay-raise vote and the subsequent vote to repeal the pay raises, that it is difficult to know where to start.

The only silver lining in last week's wrong-headed and confusing court ruling is that the state's highest court finally decided that lawmakers' use of unvouchered expenses is unconstitutional.

That conclusion should have been reached decades ago when the first challenges to the practice of lawmakers taking a higher pay differential (which they voted for themselves) through bogus expense reports, first surfaced. The constitution is quite clear in prohibiting lawmakers from voting themselves pay raises, and states that any pay increase should not take effect until after the next election.

But until last week, the state's higher courts, including the Supreme Court, looked the other way, or winked at the legislature and allowed the continuance of the practice that amounted to little more than submitting falsified expense reports — and violating the clear language of the constitution.

At last, unvouchered expenses, which to anyone outside of Harrisburg are clearly immoral, if not illegal, will not be permitted in the General Assembly.

Most of the headlines generated by last week's court decision focused on the Supreme Court's ruling that the repeal of the pay raises, at least the part pertaining to judges' pay, was unconstitutional.

To defend its position, the court noted that the constitution prohibits cuts to judges' pay. But that measure is clearly intended to protect judges from economic punishment by a legislature that might not be happy with a court decision.

The November repeal of the controversial pay-raise package was, however, designed to undo all aspects of the July 7, 2005, pay-raise vote, which covered legislators, all state judges and some executive branch officials. It was clearly not targeting any particular judge or judges. Yet five members of the state's highest court twisted the constitution to give themselves a $15,000-a-year pay raise and reinstate the raises for the other 1,200 judges across the state.

Only an extreme interpretation of the state's constitution, tainted by an obvious conflict of interest, would explain the Supreme Court's decision to reinstate (retroactive to the November repeal vote) the pay raises for judges.

The most obvious reason that this decision is wrong is that the original pay-raise package was passed in a way that is clearly unconstitutional.

The methods leading up to the 2 a.m. vote, which was preceded by no open debate and no advance notice to the public, clearly violate the state constitution. And the violations surrounding the original pay-raise vote are more numerous and just as clear as the violations involved in unvouchered expenses.

Sensibly, the state constitution says that the purpose of a bill cannot be changed from its original intent.

But in the case of the 2005 pay-raise vote, the original bill was 24 lines long and was intended to prevent executive branch salaries from exceeding that of the governor. For many weeks, the bill remained in that form. But in the hours before the bill's passage in the middle of the night, the original 24 lines of text were replaced with 22

pages of material detailing the massive pay grab for state lawmakers, judges and other officials.Clearly, the "original purpose" rule was violated by the last-minute switching of text.In addition, since legislative leaders only took a few hours in engineering the total replacement of text (and intent) of this bill, moving it through conference committee and then getting it passed by the House and Senate, the pay-grab vote also violated the state constitution's three-day rule. That rule, again, very sensibly, mandates that a bill must be considered by both the House and the Senate for three days each before a vote is cast.Obviously, this provision is intended to give lawmakers time to read and understand the legislation on which they are voting. It also gives time for the public to learn about what lawmakers are preparing to do, rather than having to react only after the action has taken place — as occurred on July 7, when the news of the stealthy and greedy pay-raise vote began to leak out of Harrisburg.How the state Supreme Court could overlook and condone this secretive process of lawmaking is hard to comprehend.Voters outraged by this court decision appear to have no recourse, other than waiting for each justice of the Supreme Court to come up for a retention vote — then soundly rejecting them.This was the fate of Justice Russell M. Nigro, who was rejected for retention last November. Another justice, Sandra Shultz Newman, was narrowly returned to the court. The historic rejection of Nigro should be repeated in each retention election until the court is made up of men and women who will stand up to a self-serving legislature that skirts the letter — and the intention — of the state constitution.The court's ruling last week is a stunning reminder to voters that the reform effort necessary to change the way Harrisburg does business has to include not only the state legislature, but also the Supreme Court.