HARRISBURG (TNS) — Russ Diamond remembers his jaw dropped as he stayed up late watching Pennsylvania Cable Network 20 years ago.

It was around 2 a.m. on July 7, when the General Assembly quickly voted to pass a bill that provided pay raises for the 253 legislators, over 1,000 state judges and then-Gov. Ed Rendell’s staff members. Rendell signed it into law and almost no one else knew it was happening.

“The way that it violated the Constitution just on its face was unbelievable,” said Diamond, now a Republican House member from Lebanon County. “And then they just leave town afterwards thinking they are going to get away with this.”

It didn’t work out that way. Across the state, a nonpartisan uprising began. People signed petitions, organized protests attended by more than a thousand people at the Capitol and demanded an immediate repeal.

Lawmakers enjoyed pay increases of up to 54%, depending on seniority, leadership and committee posts. The annual base pay for a legislator jumped from $69,647 to $81,050. Some leaders would earn as much as $145,000.

They were called “unvouchered expenses” a way to allow lamakers to take the raise immediately as a way around the constitutional restriction against taking a raise in the same term they were approved.

Sen. Anthony Williams, a Democrat, said he vaguely remembered the pay raise. He kept the unvouchered expenses from the pay increase. He said that his constituents in Philadelphia were less angry about it than those of his colleagues.

“I think that it was a vote that acknowledged that just like any industry, members felt that increase of compensation would make it more viable and doable to serve the public,” Williams said. “I didn’t disagree with the vote then and I won’t disagree with it now.”

There was intense pressure at the Capitol to support the pay raise: for example, former House Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese fired Rep. Joseph Petrarca, D-Westmoreland County from the transportation subcommittee because he voted no on the pay raise.

Eric Epstein, founder of the government watchdog group Rock the Capital, recalled the pay raise vote as “a late-night heist of taxpayer dollars” at a press conference on Monday.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that September that unvouchered expenses were not constitutional, but legislators were not required to pay the money back. The court also ruled that its members and approximately 1,200 state judges could keep their pay raises. The pay raise for the General Assembly was repealed four months after it was passed with Senate voting 50-0 and House voting 197-1.

New rules that prohibited both chambers from convening before 8 a.m. or voting after 11 p.m. were set in place to prevent another early morning vote on matters of major consequence.

Williams does not believe that a late-night vote meant less transparency.

“It’s a public vote and you know whether they did it at two in the morning or 12 in the afternoon, people had a reaction to it,” Williams said.

“Even if a pay raise had been justified, doing it almost clandestinely like it was done in Harrisburg is going to backfire, especially if the public wasn’t involved in the discussion,” said Craig Holman, ethics expert at Public Citizen.

Diamond started a PAC– PACleanSweep—with a goal to remove every incumbent during the 2006 election. Nearly one-fourth of the House lost their seats, despite some lawmakers donating or returning their pay increases. Seventeen members of the Senate were defeated, including Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer and Senate Majority Leader David J. Brightbill.

Supreme Court Justice Russell Nigro lost his once-a-decade retention — an unprecedented outcome in Pennsylvania history.

Two decades later, the pay structure for lawmakers remains generous.

Under state law enacted in 1995, legislators receive an annual cost-of-living increase (COLA) based on inflation rates. That puts Gov. Josh Shapiro’s salary at nearly $246,000 in 2025, making him the second-highest paid governor in the country.

Rank-and-file lawmakers will make a little over $110,000. Only California and New York have higher-paid legislatures than Pennsylvania.

There are still a few lawmakers who accepted the pay raise in 2005 and remain in office today: Sen. David G. Argall, R-Carbon County, Sen. Vincent J. Hughes, D-Philadelphia, Sen. Christine M. Tartaglione, D-Philadelphia, Sen. Anthony H. Williams, D-Philadelphia.

Former Rep. Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, is now a member of Congress.

Only Williams responded to PennLive’s request for an interview.

Diamond said he was honored to be part of Pennsylvania history, but added that meaningful change is still a long way off.

“I mean, just look at the situation we’re in right now where we don’t have a budget and it’s really left up to five key players and the legislative leadership teams to come up with it and not a whole lot of input from the other 240-plus elected members of the General Assembly.”