“Reform in Pennsylvania is like spraying perfume in a sewer,” said Eric Epstein this week, an activist who runs the watchdog website Rock the Capital. “it’s a fragrance that’s not going to last, and the political turds resurface."

Epstein was one of four activists who brought their memories—and their inflatable pig—to the state capitol this week. In the main rotunda, all four regaled reporters with stories of Pennsylvania’s infamous pay raise scandal.

On July 7 of 2005, the Pennsylvania legislature passed that year's state budget at 2am in the morning— and at the 11th hour (literally) included a pay raise for themselves, and the executive and judicial branches.

“Without public hearings, without public debate, without public knowledge,” Epstein said.

Legislators got anywhere from a 16% to 54% pay increase, according to an archived TribLive news article. Pennsylvania’s constitution says pay raises can’t go into effect until after the next election. Yet on the same day they passed the pay raise, 131 house members and 27 senators started accepting “unvouchered expenses” equal to their pay raise amount.

“What made this issue so dramatic for ordinary people is it was entirely, 100% self-serving,” said Tim Potts, president of the constitution amendment group Democracy Rising.

Potts, Epstein, and dozens of other activists traveled the state after the July 7 vote, raising awareness on what happened. Pennsylvanians were livid. On September 27, over a thousand people flooded the state capitol steps— many of them “oinking” as a giant inflatable pig towered over everyone.

“It was just so outrageous. You know, at 2:00 in the morning, that you would raise your own salary,” Epstein said. "I think everybody felt that they had been screwed.”

Four months later, the legislature repealed the pay raises— but the fire didn’t go out. Around 53 representatives and senators got voted out of office or retired in the 2006 election.

“I was hesitant at first. Again, I was a teenager and I didn't really want anything to do with it.” Mallory Waldron said. The Erie local remembers her dad asking if she would help him campaign— to kick Rep. Matthew Good out of District 3.

“But then once I kind of realized, 'no, a middle of the night pay raise is wrong’,” Waldron said. “One day I am going to have to face this. Let's just start here.”

She was around 15 when she started knocking on doors to get signatures for her dad’s filing petition. Thinking of young people now, she says that 18 comes quicker than expected— and the things that lawmakers today will impact young adults in the years to come.

Twenty years since the pay raise scandal, activists say Pennsylvanians should be proud of when they took action.

“We do have the power,” said Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause. “The Pennsylvania Constitution enables the people to stand up and act."

Gene Stilp filed lawsuits around all of the pay raise scandal that resulted in the Supreme Court ruling the “unvouchered expenses” unconstitutional. The activist says citizen’s often wait for disaster to strike before taking action and holding state officials accountable.

“People will help with campaigns, but getting people into this building to monitor meetings, to monitor what's going on—  is very important,” Stilp said.

Pennsylvania’s lawmakers didn’t get a 2005 pay raise. But a cost-of-living adjustment passed in the 90s means that rank and file lawmakers who had $69,000 salaries in 2005 are getting paid $110,016 in 2025.

While the legislature and the executive branch got their pay raise repealed— Supreme Court Justices never reversed the pay raise for state judges, who still have the extra bump in their salaries to this day.