HARRISBURG -- Imagine that you're a Republican member of Pennsylvania's state House of Representatives. You're taking a public thrashing for your "yes" vote on the pay raises that lawmakers gave to themselves and other state officials last month.

	House Speaker John Perzel, R-Philadelphia

On the front lines, absorbing the heat with you, right?

Nope. He's on the other side of the planet, in China. After that, a tropical island getaway. Next up? A trip to Italy. The latter two trips are personal vacations; the first was a business trip, meant to boost trade between Pennsylvania and China's Fujian Province.

Perzel has been largely incommunicado since the Legislature completed work on the pay raise bill at 2 a.m. July 7. Now, seven weeks later, some House Republicans are privately irked that their leader has been invisible when, back on the home front, they're being assailed from all directions.

"Rank-and-file members expect visible and vocal leadership from the speaker," said former Republican state Rep. Jeff Coleman, now with the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative policy group that is fighting the pay raises. "When a leader is silent, it becomes difficult for the rank-and-file members to find their way" and craft a cohesive response to the barrage of criticism, he said.

Beth Williams, spokeswoman for Perzel, said it's not the speaker's job to defend colleagues after tough votes.

"I don't think that this is a fair argument," she said. "Every member -- no matter what the topic -- members cast their individual votes."

Perzel, along with other legislative caucus leaders and Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, were able to gather up enough support for a pay raise vote last month.

Lawmakers and and executive branch officials will all get bumps in pay -- officially, the pay raises take effect in 2007, but many lawmakers and judges have elected to take them now, drawing the money from special accounts. Those voucher payments don't qualify as salary, the courts have ruled, which means lawmakers are able to evade the section of the constitution that forbids a sitting Legislature from increasing its own pay scale. Pay increases for the judiciary branch took effect immediately when Rendell signed the bill into law.

After taking the vote, lawmakers left the Capitol for their summer recess, so Perzel wasn't the only one to get away for a little rest and relaxation.

The lawmakers contacted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also acknowledged that Perzel's travel plans were made in advance, before anyone realized how upset the voters, columnists, radio show hosts and grass-roots political groups would be.

It's not so much the vacations themselves, but the timing of it all, that has annoyed colleagues.

"I think there is a growing sense that the speaker of the House needs to make a declarative statement on a full repeal of the pay raise," Coleman said, "which is now the focus of many rank-and-file efforts."

For example, Rep. Tom Creighton, a Lancaster Republican, plans to introduce a bill later this week that would repeal the entire pay raise law. Republican Reps. Daryl Metcalfe of Cranberry and Mike Turzai of Bradford Woods are co-sponsoring the bill. Another lawmaker, Rep. Will Gabig, R-Cumberland, is sponsoring a bill that would prevent the raises from being taken prematurely in the form of "unvouchered expenses."

But these types of bills are commonplace, often proposed with a wink and a nudge. Anytime a controversial law is enacted -- the 2004 slots legalization law, for instance -- those who opposed it soon sponsor bills to repeal the very law that was just approved. It makes them look good to constituents, when in reality the lawmakers and leadership have an understanding that the bills have little or no chance at receiving serious consideration.

So are these bills a signal of brewing discord between the rank-and-file GOP and its leadership, or are they merely a dog-and-pony show, put on to appease the voters back home?

Creighton, who voted in favor of the pay raises, then apologized for his action later, said the answer depends on how long objectors can keep the pay raise issue alive.

"I think we need to see what the future holds," he said. "Does it start to die down? [Or] does it build to a crescendo, plateau and put pressure on all the legislators?"

Several House sources have said that Perzel, upon his return, planned to demote the House Republicans who voted against the pay raise bill and who also hold committee chairmanships -- those positions pay more than the new $81,050 base salary, so losing the chair is equivalent to losing pay. On the Democratic side, Minority Leader H. William DeWeese has already demoted those who voted "no" on the raises.

Many Republican lawmakers, as a result, don't want to speak ill of Perzel, one of several people being mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate in 2010. But, in background conversations, many have said that they wish he were here to take more of the heat.

"It seems like we're all out there on our own," one Republican lawmaker said.

Another said that the issue wasn't necessarily Perzel's absence, but that this was the most serious in a string of big issues where he has sided with Rendell rather than the majority of his caucus -- the income tax hike, slots and now the pay raises.

"You have repeated cases where the so-called leader is leading opposite the will of caucus," said one Republican, who asked to remain anonymous. "He's led us in the wrong direction."

Bill Green, a Republican political consultant, said that GOP lawmakers are less annoyed with Perzel's absence than they are with the surprising shelf life of the pay raise story.

"I don't think they're mad at leadership," Green said. "They're just mad that the story has taken fire." They have no one to blame but themselves, he said -- by approving the pay raises right before leaving for vacation, there wasn't any other legislative news to fill the summer vacuum.