HARRISBURG -- Citizen groups angry about state legislators' big pay raise want to vote incumbent lawmakers out of office on Nov. 8.

There's only one problem -- there aren't any legislators up for re-election next month.

So the pay-raise protesters are doing what they consider to be the next best thing.

They're urging Pennsylvanians to take out their frustrations on two state Supreme Court justices who are up for a 10-year retention election on Nov. 8 -- Russell Nigro and Sandra Schultz Newman, both of Philadelphia.

Ousting them, the protesters say, would send a strong statewide message that political incumbents aren't safe, no matter who they are, and it might even lead legislators to rethink the raise.

But is such a campaign tactic fair?

Not at all, say the justices and their defenders, who include Pennsylvania Bar Association President William Carlucci, a Williamsport lawyer.

What the protesters are doing "is ridiculous and nonsensical," Mr. Carlucci said.

"It's like saying that somebody committed a crime, and we can't find the right person to arrest so we'll just go out and arrest the first person we find," he said. "These two justices didn't have anything to do with the pay raise."

"It's unfair to single out any judge on a case we didn't act on," Justice Nigro said in a phone interview. "Sandy Newman and I didn't vote on the pay raise."

But leaders of grass-roots groups such as Pa. Clean Sweep, based in Lebanon County, and Democracy Rising Pa., based in Cumberland County, contend it is fair.

They claim the Supreme Court has a tradition of upholding what critics consider to be questionable, if not unconstitutional, actions by the Legislature.

And, the critics argue, the Supreme Court justices -- like more than 1,000 judges across the state -- benefitted from raises included in the bill, in addition to legislators and Gov. Ed Rendell's cabinet members.

Incumbents of all sorts need to get a message that "politics as usual in Harrisburg" is no longer acceptable, said Russ Diamond of Clean Sweep.

The justices' retention election "is a chance to launch a 'shot across the bow' of our state legislators," added Gene Stilp, a Harrisburg political activist who's filed a state lawsuit to stop the pay raises.

Voting in the retention elections "empowers people, so judges know we're watching what they're doing," Mr. Stilp added.

Mr. Diamond said the Supreme Court "is part of the problem with state government, and it's not just the pay raise issue.''

The legislative procedure used to enact the July 2004 slot machine law also was secretive and flawed but the court did nothing to stop it, he complained.

Tim Potts of Democracy Rising railed against the two justices during the "Rock the Capital" rally against the pay raise on Sept. 26.

He was critical of all Supreme Court justices, including Chief Justice Ralph Cappy for his vocal support for the pay raise bill. Justice Cappy criticized the protesters for a "knee-jerk reaction" against the raises.

Mr. Stilp said that Justices Nigro and Newman "should have said something about Cappy's statement but they took no action."

Mr. Potts criticized the Supreme Court for, over the years, going along with what he considers indefensible actions by the Legislature, such as the early-morning rush in July 2004 to approve the new slot machine law.

Mr. Potts said legislative leaders totally changed an innocuous two-page bill at the last minute, without public hearings, turning it into a 146-page bill legalizing 14 slots casinos and making perhaps the biggest social change ever in Pennsylvania history.

The Supreme Court largely upheld the slots law in late June -- just one week before the justices got higher pay from the Legislature, Mr. Potts noted, calling the timing curious.

Supreme Court justices have stood by idly for years, Mr. Potts complained, while legislators "rendered important parts of the state constitution essentially meaningless," such as a requirement that bills must be considered in public on three different days.

He said that Supreme Court justices, including Justices Nigro and Newman, "have said it's OK for the Legislature to enact the pay raise the way they did, without any public hearings or a chance for citizens to express their opinions until it's too late."

Justice Nigro heatedly denied that he or any member of the court is "a rubber stamp for the Legislature."

Justice Newman couldn't be reached, but Justice Nigro said they both have a long record of independent judgments on cases. Before spending the last 10 years on the high court, Justice Nigro was a Common Pleas Court judge in Philadelphia.

"It's fundamentally unfair for [these critics] to take the position that we're a rubber stamp, and it would be unfair for voters to vote us out when they don't know the reality of our voting record," Justice Nigro said. "I've overruled the Legislature many times in the last 10 years."

Mr. Carlucci said the bar association's evaluation commission, an independent group containing lawyers and nonlawyers, had recommended retaining Justices Nigro and Newman.

Mr. Carlucci said that neither state officials or anyone else "have any control over the evaluation commission. They are balanced politically, racially, geographically and by gender. They did a thorough analysis [of Justices Nigro and Newman] before recommending their retention."

Pittsburgh political consultant William J. Green, a member of former Gov. Dick Thornburgh's administration, predicted the campaign to oust the justices will fail.

"The effort to get rid of [pro-pay-raise] legislators is not going to succeed in 2006 and they'll have about the same success of ousting the justices, which is none," he said.