Legislation to repeal a bill that gave state lawmakers pay raises stalled yesterday as the House of Representatives rejected the Senate version of the bill and delayed further action until negotiators strike a deal.

Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre, said the reason for the repeal of the pay raise was backlash from the public.

"I think it's a case where legislature heeded the will of the people," he said. "We're a representative democracy, and people were upset with the raise in July and we decided to fulfill our role to the people."

The four-month-old pay raise law, signed by Gov. Ed Rendell, increased the salaries of more than 1,300 lawmakers, judges and executive branch officials, and was approved in the dead of night on July 7 with no debate or public notice. The repeal measure set in motion by the Senate last week rubbed emotions raw after legislative leaders had agreed to stand firm against intense public criticism.

The bill, sent to the House of Representatives from the Senate late Wednesday evening, called for a total repeal of the pay raise, Corman said.

Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, said the House of Representatives had a problem with the bill because it lacked a "non-severability clause," which would stop the bill from being picked apart by the court system.

"Our chamber thought that we needed to make sure the entire bill is repealed and that it cannot be severed," he said. "A lot of times the courts will pick it apart and find parts of it unconstitutional."

Benninghoff said when the bill was sent back to the Senate Wednesday evening, senators subsequently "stripped" it of the clause. They made it severable, which would allow the judiciary to find the dock in pay to be unconstitutional while still maintaining the legislative and executive branches' pay reduction, Corman said.

Corman cited the Pennsylvania Constitution as the reason for changing the bill. The document states that the legislative arm of government cannot lower salaries of the judiciary, he said.

"When they put that in our constitution they wanted equal branches of government," he said. "They didn't want the legislative branch to punish the judiciary for decisions they made that the legislative branch didn't like."

Corman said that the severability clause would allow the court system to keep its pay raise if it wants and still allow the bill to repeal the pay raise for the other branches.

"We didn't want the judiciary to knock it down because then the entire bill will fail," he said. "Then we would be looked at as having passed something unconstitutional on purpose to get our pay raise back -- we've ensured that the rest of the bill will stand."

Benninghoff said the amended version from the House that was sent back to the Senate last night also cut two deputy whip positions -- a party leadership position in the General Assembly -- from the bill.

Kate Philips, Gov. Rendell's press secretary, said the governor is ready to sign the new legislation when it is finally prepared.

"He urged the lawmakers to finish up work on this," she said. "To finish the business of lawmakers' pay and the business of what lawmakers do and get on to the business of the people of Pennsylvania."

The House met last night to discuss the newest version of the bill, Benninghoff said. House members could not be reached by deadline last night.

"We've spent too much time on this," Benninghoff said. "I think the public wants to move on -- it's time to get this done in its entirety."

The Associated Press contributed to this report