It's something your lawmakers do because they can; so few who care are watching and expectations for anything more are so consistently low.

But that could change.

Just as the 2005 pay grab forced some ousters, change and improvements, a breaking investigation could mean better days ahead.

State Attorney General Tom Corbett reportedly is ready as soon as next week to announce the first in an expected series of criminal charges against former (and possibly current) lawmakers and staff.

There is a lot of chatter that this probe into the use of $3.6 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses (some over $20,000) paid to some legislative employees for working on political campaigns goes beyond the bonus issue to cover-ups and obstruction of justice, extending deep into the institution.

A Corbett spokesman will only say all four caucuses are targets.

But as this unfolds, for however long it unfolds, it could be the other shoe.

The pay-raise scandal - in which lawmakers tried a late-night break-in of the state treasury to raise their already generous salaries - brought attention to the body like nothing in a generation.

It caused election losses and turnover, 55 new members in 2007 and some reforms in operations, including cutting back on perks.

It just didn't last.

But now, as the "reform" movement dries up, here comes what looks like a dark institutional cloud. And some see a silver lining.

"It's a shame that it takes that kind of dramatic episode to force change," says Common Cause director Barry Kauffman, "but we do need a system that's more responsive to citizens."

The Legislature leaves for summer - assuming a late-as-usual state budget is passed by week's end - without action to help hundreds of thousands of working adults who have no health insurance.

It leaves without investing in biomedical research.

It leaves without even allowing votes on needed reform measures in redistricting and campaign finance.

And it leaves without serious efforts to drain its own slush funds or curtail its own exorbitant costs.

Tim Potts of the reform group Democracy Rising Pennsylvania says he just wrote major foundations - the Penn Foundation, Pew and Heinz - asking that they watch for expected indictments.

"I said the pay raise was an opportunity, and we blew it because we can't compete with an institution with a $300 million a-year budget," says Potts.

"I'm not asking for money now," he says he wrote, "I'm saying think about this when the indictments come, and then I'll ask you for money."

His argument is based in belief that without a sustained, adequately funded public campaign calling for fundamental change - the size and cost of the Legislature, term limits, a Constitutional Convention on reform issues - only marginal improvements are possible.

There have been some improvements: passing a lobbyist law, ending expensive vehicle leases, opening up some process stuff.

But without real pressure for progressive, responsive government, there will be no structural improvements.

Maybe a broad investigation with arrests and convictions provides real pressure.

There is no question it is needed.

Recent ratings by the Washington-based Pew Center on the States show the largest full-time legislature in America provides its people a government that ranks behind 13 other states. The center also singles out our state budget process as a "weakness."

Can things get better? Well, maybe - if they get worse first. *

Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.

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