Twice, Michael Chapaloney called to answer a reporter's questions about the middle-of-the-night pay raise the state Legislature passed last month.

Chapaloney isn't a lawmaker, though. He was running interference for his boss, Rep. Victor J. Lescovitz, D-Midway, who didn't return calls himself.

Reps. Peter J. Daley, D-California, and Timothy J. Solobay, D-Canonsburg, didn't return calls, either.

It may be that the only people who aren't talking about the hefty pay raises for legislators, judges and cabinet secretaries are some of those who voted for the bill, which some observers likened to a cabal against state taxpayers.

The bill was adopted in the wee hours of July 7 after it burst out of a conference committee and onto the floor without public warning. But observers said the lightning-quick passage was a well-orchestrated maneuver, not a last-minute vote by a Legislature eager to begin the summer recess.

G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College, said legislative leaders from both parties cooperated to marshal enough votes for the bill. Bipartisanship was necessary, he said, to prevent finger-pointing during the 2006 campaign.

Legislators hope the public outcry dies before then, and many are laying low, saying nothing about the issue to avoid giving ammunition to potential opponents, said Barry Kauffman, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause/Pennsylvania. State Sen. J. Barry Stout, D-Bentleyville, was the only local lawmaker who offered a comment about the issue last week.

"I want to stress the fact that I do the job," Stout said, citing transportation and development projects he's brought to the district.

"I earn the salary of my office, and I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of that. I think I've acted in a responsible way."

The bill raised legislators' salaries from 16 percent to 34 percent, with the average member's salary going from $69,647 to $81,050. Leaders will get bigger increases, with the House speaker and Senate president pro tem seeing their salaries increase from $108,724 to $145,463.

Kauffman said the bill violated the state constitution and legislative rules, showed the arrogance of lawmakers who have become insulated from public retribution and revealed the legislative process to be "deeply in decay."

While the state constitution forbids lawmakers from accepting a pay raise midterm, they've circumvented that provision by taking the money in the form of "unvouchered expenses." The Internal Revenue Service regards unvouchered expenses as salary, Kauffman said, wondering how the Legislature could call it something else.

In rushing the bill from committee onto the floor, he said, the Legislature violated a section of the constitution requiring three days' consideration in each chamber. He said leaders couldn't risk a prolonged airing of the bill, for fear of losing member discipline to constituent pressure.

Some observers said the bill also showed legislators to be servants of floor leaders as much as their constituents.

Fifteen Democratic House members who voted against the bill lost committee or subcommittee leadership posts. Kauffman said "only the most naive would deny" that House Minority Leader DeWeese retaliated against those who failed to get in line.

DeWeese didn't return a phone call for this story, but his spokesman, Tom Andrews, said DeWeese had commented for previous stories and hadn't retaliated against anyone. Andrews noted that DeWeese, while shuffling some leadership posts, didn't oust anyone from a committee.

While he didn't return calls for this story, Solobay did comment for a July 27 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story. Asked whether he'd take the raise, Solobay said, "I'll do whatever the law allows."

Madonna said he hadn't heard of leaders vowing to punish lawmakers who voted against the bill by sitting on their legislation or denying them legislative initiative grants used to upgrade libraries and firehouses.

But time will tell whether anyone is punished.

Legislative initiative grants traditionally have been used to control votes, and leaders tend to favor team players, Madonna said. Kauffman said some legislators had learned to keep their mouths shut, vote as leadership tells them and collect as much legislative initiative grant money as possible to make a splash in their districts.

Stout said he hadn't heard of members being punished for voting no. If there's ill will among lawmakers, he said, it's because some of those who voted against the measure are accepting the extra money anyway.

It all began with a 24-line bill, introduced in the House in May, giving salary boosts to executive branch officials.

The House passed the bill June 8, and the Senate passed its version July 6. Burning midnight oil, a conference committee then met to fashion a bill acceptable to both chambers.

Instead of merely working out details on cabinet members' pay, however, the bill mushroomed into a 22-page document giving increases to legislators and judges, too. But the bill just didn't give a one-time increase.

It permanently tied salary increases of state officials to those of federal officials or increases in the regional cost of living, whichever is greater each year. Future pay raises will kick in quietly, without a public vote.

The bill also included "non-severability" language that scuttles the entire legislation if any part of it is struck down.

Kauffman said a legal challenge to the bill would involve going before judges whose own salary increases would be on the line. He said non-severability language "neutered" the judiciary, violating the constitutional balance of power.

In addition, Kauffman claimed the bill violated a constitutional requirement that each bill cover one subject. With pay raises for three branches of government, he contended, the bill covered multiple subjects.

Andrews dismissed Kaufmann's arguments, saying the bill covered one subject, compensation of public officials, and he described non-severability language as something "used often" in legislation. He said the amended bill that came out of conference committee July 7 had received three days' consideration in earlier form and didn't require additional consideration.

Legislators have been getting an earful from angry constituents, and in at least one case, the anger has extended to former officeholders.

Leo J. Trich Jr., who left the Legislature in 2002, said people had jabbed him about getting a bigger pension. The North Franklin man has tried to set them straight; the bill has no effect on former lawmakers.

Unclear is whether the public outrage would last until the 2006 election.

If voters don't send a message then, they'll essentially have lost control over state government, giving officials more reason to believe they can do what they want, Kauffman said. At the same time, he said, it will be difficult to defeat those responsible for the pay raise.

Because of redistricting, he said, most contests are decided in the primary. And with party bosses discouraging challengers and incumbents able to raise large amounts of money, many lawmakers have no challengers in the primary, either, making a farce of the electoral process, Kauffman said.

"Do you have elections? The answer is no. And if you don't have elections, do you have accountability? And the answer, again, is no," he said.