Judges decision keeps pay raise for themselves

[WhiteTara]

file this under when will they ever learn

http://www.pottstownmercury.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17207418&BRD=1674&PAG=461&dept_id=18038&rfi=6

Judges on the state& highest court Thursday reinstated pay raises for about 1,200 elected judges and district judges in a decision that is certain to rile voters still smarting from the state legislators voted a year ago to give themselves a raise.

The state Supreme Court ordered judges pay -- including their own -- to return to the level it was at in November, before the four-month-old pay-raise law was repealed. The judges also will receive retroactive pay. The justices said the legislature violated the state Constitution by permitting its members to accept illegal midterm pay raises in the form of "unvouchered expenses," but the court did not order lawmakers to repay any of that money.

The unvouchered expense allowance is unconstitutional because "it does not bear a reasonable relationship to the actual expenses incurred by individual legislators," Justice Ronald D. Castille wrote in a 100-page opinion joined by four other justices.
snip
The public negative reaction to the pay-raise law was credited with the unprecedented defeat of a sitting Supreme Court justice in November and the defeats of 17 incumbent legislators, including the two highest-ranking state senators, in the May primaries.

The issue spawned at least five lawsuits. Three of them were consolidated before the Supreme Court, which ruled on all three Thursday.

edited for computer glitch (or operator glitch?)

[Deja Q]

1. Tell the voters of the area.

They will all want to vote the incumbents out.