PA evenly split whether to retain state legislators come November

The media continues to be amazingly slow - the results are split, people, split evenly.

The headline should have read: Pay raise issue shows voters equally engaged and apathetic.

The lead should've read: The legislative pay raise that ignited a political back-yard fire in PA nearly a year ago reveals voters evenly matched on whether to retain or dismiss their district lawmakers seeking support for their re-elections.

Pay raise still important to voters, poll shows
By The Associated PressThursday, June 22, 2006
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The legislative pay raise that ignited a political wildfire in Pennsylvania nearly a year ago remains important to many voters as lawmakers seek support for their re-election, a poll released Thursday shows.

The Quinnipiac University poll, which also reaffirmed Gov. Ed Rendell's huge lead over Republican challenger Lynn Swann, showed respondents were evenly divided on whether they would vote to oust lawmakers who voted for the raise.

The survey showed respondents evenly split — 46 percent on each side — when asked whether they would vote against their own legislators just because they voted for the pay raise. Democrats were slightly more inclined than Republicans to do so, the poll found.

In western and central Pennsylvania, home to 14 of the 17 incumbents who were defeated in a remarkable rout in the May primary, the poll showed the pay-raise votes to be more influential than in the eastern third of the state.

Those results had to be weighed against another finding: 57 percent of the respondents statewide did not remember how their representatives and senators had voted on the pay raise.



http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/election/s_459103.html