Tim Potts leading fight to repeal legislative pay raises

For a quarter century, Bethel Park native Tim Potts was the ultimate Harrisburg insider.

The 56-year-old Carlisle man was a confidential adviser to 12 state Cabinet secretaries in the departments of public welfare, commerce and education before he moved to the Legislature, where he was communications director for House Minority Leader H. William DeWeese, D-Waynesburg, for eight years.

When he left DeWeese's staff in 1997 to work as an education consultant, it was with a handshake and, Potts recalled, the promise that there would always be a place for him on the leader's staff.

Fast forward to 2005: The ultimate insider, the well-barbered man in a dark suit, silk tie and button-down collar shirt -- playing a role that's equal parts policy wonk, evangelist and guerilla theater -- is leading an assault on the Pennsylvania Legislature. As coordinator of Democracy Rising PA, a coalition of six statewide organizations that span the political spectrum, Potts is crisscrossing the state on his own dime to gather converts for his cause -- repealing the July 7 middle-of-the-night legislative pay raise and ending business as usual in the state capital.

His new role has outraged some and confounded others.

State Rep. Ray Bunt, R-Montgomery, a senior member of the GOP Caucus, never had much contact with Potts, but he's puzzled by some of the positions Potts takes today against the Legislature.

"He understands the system better than most people. He was involved in things over the years (for the Democratic Caucus) that were good and not so good," Bunt said. "Given that background it would leave me to believe, what did DeWeese or Veon do to him to make him do this 180?"

Nothing, Potts insisted.

Moreover, he said his background is why he's uniquely well-situated to lead the charge. He knows exactly what it would take to change things.

"Only 129 people stand between us and the best democracy in the nation," Potts often says, explaining it would take only a majority of the members of the state House (102 members), the state Senate (26 members) and the governor to reform state government.

In the best of all worlds, Potts could content himself with a little public education advocacy work, gardening and performing with the Dickinson College early renaissance a cappella choir, where he sings first tenor. That, and time with his wife, Lu Conserv, and their friends could fill his days.

"I love to garden. I love to sing," he said, wistfully.

But business as usual in his old haunt under the Capitol dome has become too corrupt to tolerate, Potts said.

So, Citizen Potts is on the road, working up to 60 hours a week advocating change, rallying outrage, adding his name to a court challenge to the legislative pay raise and asking Pennsylvanians to use their anger over the raise to reclaim state government.

He cites post-election lame duck legislative sessions that pass more laws after the election than before it, legislative leaders who kill reform bills in committee, weak public records laws and Pennsylvania's standing as the only state in the union that does not regulate lobbyists to back up the coalition's claims that it is time for systemic change.

But first, he'd like to see the legislative pay raise repealed -- not because the $81,050 base pay is excessive -- but because it was done with out public comment or debate, something coalition members contend happens all too often when important issues loom in Harrisburg.

During a September speaking engagement in Pittsburgh, Potts incited members of the Greater Pittsburgh League of Women Voters gathered at Point Park College to engage in a little guerilla theater.

"You see the stack of 4-by-6 cards and blue markers back there?" Potts said, gesturing to a table at the back of the small amphitheater. "Take a marker and a card and write "repeal" on it and put in your back windshield."

"People will know what it means," he assured the group.

"Change your registration. It doesn't matter what you are, someone will get a message if you change, even just for now. Thirty days before the primary you can change it back. ...They'll get the message."

And finally, making it clear that he was speaking for himself and not the coalition, Potts fired a salvo that is ricocheting across the Commonwealth:

"If you really want to send the Legislature a message this fall, throw a few members off the Supreme Court," he said, urging members of the group to vote "no" on the retention of Supreme Court Justices Russell M. Nigro and Sandra Schultz Newman.

A month later, Potts was mildly amused at how his "vote no" campaign had mushroomed.

Operation Clean Sweep, a statewide grass roots movement to oust all incumbents, emerged in the wake of the pay raise. Recently its leaders endorsed the "vote no" recommendation. Talk radio hosts and newspaper columnists across the state have been clamoring for interviews with Potts.

Potts said he targeted the judicial retention races because the state courts have been inconsistent in their interpretation of the state constitution. Moreover, the justices, who also were included in the July 7 pay raise, are part of a court that has repeatedly upheld the practice of lawmakers taking raises mid-term as unvouchered expenses, a practice used to circumvent the state constitution's prohibition on mid-term raises.

"In this case, what matters is how the members of the court are interpreting the (state) constitution, whether they are interpreting it in a way that protects and empowers citizens or harms them.

"I'm not surprised because I believed all along people want to understand government and politics better than they do and under right circumstance they are eager to learn. The pay raise gave us a circumstance under which we could talk about these issues: how the justices interpret the Constitution, whether it's the right way or not and whether people think it's right or not."

"We all look at the pay raise as a gift because it made it clear to everyone just how bad things are," said Kathleen Daugherty, of Pennsylvania Lutheran Advocacy Ministry, who called the first meeting of the group that became Democracy Rising.

In addition to Daugherty's group, the coalition includes the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters, the Commonwealth Foundation, Common Cause Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group and the Pennsylvania Council of Churches.

The coalition does not have fundraising standing as a tax-exempt nonprofit, nor is it incorporated. Instead, each group has agreed to use its existing structure to promote reform. And Potts vows to do everything he can as a citizen.

Although Democracy Rising PA had its public debut only two months ago with the launch of its Web site, www.democracyrisingPA.com, the coalition is not new.

It jelled 15 months ago when the Legislature passed Pennsylvania's controversial slots bill in the middle of the night, with no public debate. The groups, outraged by what they considered a legislative sleight of hand aimed at quelling opposition to slots, began meeting regularly. Some members joined the suit that challenged the constitutionality of the slots law.

On June 23, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against them.

They were ready primed for action when, once again acting in the dark of night, the Legislature gave itself a 16 percent to 54 percent pay raise two weeks later.

Matthew Brouillette, president of the Commonwealth Foundation, a limited government, conservative think tank, marvels that state lawmakers brought the coalition together around the same table.

"Tim and I have crossed swords, primarily in the education field. ...But our mutual agreement here is that the system is broken. It's not serving the people of Pennsylvania. It is serving the people who are supposed to be serving the people of Pennsylvania," Brouillette said.

Democracy Rising's diversity may be its strength.

"When you have groups like Common Cause and the Commonwealth Foundation working together it raises a lot of eyebrows," Brouillette said.

"I think the coalition has helped us gain respect for one another as colleagues," Daugherty said.

Beth McConnell, director of the Pennsylvania Public Interest Group, said Potts' ability to take complex government ethics issues, translate them into simple language and grab public attention has been key to his success.

"He makes it fun, interesting, compelling and relevant. He's doing a good job," she said.

Pollster and political scientist Terry Madonna, said the coalition is unlike anything he's seen in Harrisburg in three decades.

"I just don't know of any time liberal and conservative groups have gotten together like this. ... We are talking about one of those pivotal moments when groups normally opposing each other come together in a united front," Madonna said.

Not everyone is happy.

One Harrisburg insider phoned the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review after learning Potts was the subject of a profile. He left the anonymous tip that Potts was earning $84,000 a year when he left DeWeese's staff seven years ago. "And he doesn't want to pay lawmakers $81,050."

"That's true," Potts said, confirming his old salary. "And I took a $35,000 a year pay cut when I left, partly because of my disgust with the system.

"But I know how hard some (legislators) work. I'm not complaining about the level of compensation. I'm complaining about way they did it. When they do it that way (in the middle of the night with no notice or discussion), that's the real problem."

Unlike some self-styled reformers, Potts stops short of calling for an ouster of all incumbent lawmakers next year. He'd like to see lawmakers take up Democracy Rising's agenda and "redeem" themselves with voters.

"It's redemption or damnation," he said at a recent public gathering.

His old friend, DeWeese, whom many consider among the prime architects of the pay raise, takes it all in stride..

"I believed and maintain the belief that he was an exemplary public servant. ... I certainly have no jaundiced recollections of Tim. I hold our friendship in high regard," DeWeese said.

It was clear, DeWeese added, that Potts was frustrated with the "world of politics, which inherently demands compromise and occasionally mandates half steps instead of full strides."

"He would have been a marvelous apostle in Galilee or an invigorating field marshal at Napoleon's side because Tim gives it all he has. And he hurls himself into anything be it proselytizing or battle formations," DeWeese said.

Where does it come from?

Potts said the seeds if his interest in justice and public policy date back to his high school days in Fairfax, Va., where his family moved after leaving Bethel Park. In Fairfax, he had a ringside seat to the civil rights movement just across the river in the nation's capital.

"I used to catch a bus and go watch the civil rights debates in the House and Senate. I watched them debate the Voting Rights Act," he said, laughing at the notion that a 14-year-old could ride the Capitol subway and eat in the cafeteria with members of Congress in the days before security concerns closed off such possibilities to ordinary citizens.

But even then, he never could have predicted that he would be hired into state government from a civil service list in 1972 and work for the state and the Legislature for 25 years.

His experience in the state Department of Education, coupled with the conviction that strong public education can make a difference, led him to the Pennsylvania School Reform Network after he left DeWeese's office. He continues to nurture those convictions independently these days.

Although Potts insisted elective office has never been part of his life plan, he's running for office -- school board in the Carlisle Area School District -- as a Democrat.

He took his own advice a while back and switched his registration to Independent, but re-registered as a Democrat when he was told he'd be at a lack without party affiliation in the school board primary.

Potts said school director is the only office he ever intends to seek. He'd like to be part of fostering quality public education in his community, if his neighbors see fit to give him that opportunity.

But for now, he's working 50- to 60-hour weeks, promoting Democracy Rising PA, focusing on what may be a limited window of opportunity to effect change under the Capitol dome.

And once again, he's running the numbers, making sure everyone knows just how many lawmakers it would take to make a change -- in this instance, get the repeal bills out of committee and onto the House floor for a vote.

"There are only 15 lawmakers (a majority of the 29-member state House Rules Committee where the pay raise repeal bill was sent to die) standing between us and a vote to repeal the pay raise. We need to start putting pressure on those folks," he said.