Revenge takes back seat to raise

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published July 2, 2007

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In one sense, being elected to Congress is like joining the Mafia: You take a blood oath. That's the term Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, used to describe the solemn pact House Republicans and Democrats have over protecting their automatic pay raises from public scrutiny. "It wasn't just a truce; it was like a blood oath, " Pryce explained.

Democrats violated the oath last year by campaigning against some Republican candidates, including Pryce unsuccessfully, for accepting the automatic pay raise while voting against a minimum-wage increase for their constituents. It helped Democrats take control of the House, and Republicans vowed revenge. That is until the money was on the line.

Since 1989, an automatic pay adjustment for House members happens without a recorded vote, unless someone tries to stop it. This year the raise is worth more than $4, 000, bumping up a member's pay to nearly $170, 000 a year.

When some members from both sides of the aisle tried to force a debate on the pay raise, the effort was quickly squelched in a procedural maneuver - by both Democratic and Republican leaders. In fact, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., used hand signals on the House floor to make sure enough Republicans voted to quash the debate. That way, nervous Democrats could always claim Republicans also favored accepting the raise.

It was a clever, if disingenuous, exercise in self-interest worthy of Tony Soprano.