Local legislators vowed this week to plow forward with Gov. Bobby Jindal’s agenda despite the governor’s backpedaling on promise not to veto a controversial 120 percent legislative pay raise.

“It does not affect me one iota,” said state Rep. Greg Cromer, R-Slidell, who voted for the pay raise. “I was voted (into office) to do what is best for the citizens of Louisiana, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

On Monday, Jindal vetoed the pay raise bill offered by Sen. Ann Duplessis, D- New Orleans, that would have more than doubled legislators salaries from $17,500 to $37,500. The veto came after public outrage over the increase erupted on talk radio and Internet blogs and recall positions rolled in, calling for the ousting of Jindal and his top allies, as well as House speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, who championed the raise, and others. Although Jindal said legislators have a “right to be angry with me,” he admits “I made a mistake” by telling legislators he would not veto the measure.

“I clearly made a mistake by telling the Legislature that I would allow them to handle their own affairs,” Jindal said. “As with all mistakes, you can either correct them or compound them. I am choosing to correct my mistake now.”

Jindal originally said if he issued a veto, lawmakers would likely lend frail support, if any at all, to his agendas in upcoming legislative sessions. And after passing reforms that included boosting Louisiana ethics laws from among the worst to best in the nation, he couldn’t afford to lose momentum.

“I was trying to preserve our reform agenda and our momentum by tolerating this legislative pay raise that I knew was completely excessive,” Jindal said. “But the two cannot coexist.”

The pay raise, the first for lawmakers since 1980, would have made Louisiana legislators the highest-paid in the South and the 14th highest paid in the country, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures. The bill gained final approval in the House and Senate by slim margins.

But critics noted that Jindal promised to “prohibit” such a pay raise during gubernatorial campaigns last year, and legislators like Sen. Jack Donahue, R-Mandeville, praised Jindal for sticking to his word.

Donahue, who voted against the raise and declined to accept the money, called Jindal’s veto a breath of fresh air breezing through the halls of the Capitol.

“We might actually have a new system in Louisiana where voters actually run the state,” he said. “Imagine that the people of Louisiana really run Louisiana. Isn’t that something?”

“The right amount of people brought the right amount of ruckus” to bring change, he said.

Donahue, along with other local lawmakers, squashed the notion that legislators now won’t support Jindal’s agenda.

“There could be some animosity,” Donahue said of the veto, but the next regular session isn’t until next spring and by then “certainly there is time to mend fences.”

“It would be hard for me to believe this issue would stop good government from happening in Louisiana,” he said.

State Rep. Tim Burns, R-Mandeville, agreed.

He said since the uproar, he has championed other politicians to lend support to Jindal’s veto.

“It was the right thing to do, and I’m glad he did it,” said Burns, a private lawyer who voted for the raise but said he would donate the money to charity.

“It really threatened to undermine our agenda. It was an episode we knew we had to get past. Any responsible person knew this wasn’t going over well.”

Cromer, however, doesn’t believe the veto is the closing credits to the legislative soap opera.

“I think it’s going to come back,” Cromer said of the pay raise. “If you want decent people, you have to be compensated.”