WANTED: individual willing to be on call 365 days
a year; work 24/7 for at least two months out of the
year; establish a customer service phone line in your
home; attend community meetings upon demand; and
be able to sit through 10 hour meetings while eating
lunch and still looking good on CT-N as family,
friends, neighbors and voters watch your every move.
Benefits: Nifty looking business cards, special license
plates and all the pizza you can eat in one week.
Seriously, this is what an ad recruiting a candidate to
run for the CT legislature would look like if it wasn’t so
funny! Did you know that members of the CT
legislature currently make $28,000 per year? The
Majority and Minority leaders make $36,000, while the
House Speaker and Senate President Pro Tempore
earn $38,689 a year. Maybe not for long...
Last week, the Commission on Compensation for
Elected Officials and Judges’ (CCEOJ) proposed a
new system of annual raises for the state legislature.
Each year that the executive branch receives an
increase, the legislators would also receive one equal
to inflation adjustments. Raises for “promotions or
merit” would not be factored in. The Chairman of the
CCEOJ panel, Lewis Rome (former Senate Majority
Leader) explained that such an increase would not
reflect full-time employment, as CT has a part-time
legislature.
Ironically, on Tuesday, the Council of State
Governments (CSG) released a study of legislative
pay from 1975 to 2005. The study found that
that, “Nationwide, while the median income of their
constituents rose 50% between 1975 and 2005, the
nation’s 7,382 elected state representatives saw their
average salaries fall more then 6% when adjusted for
inflation.” By comparison, federal salaries for
members of Congress have risen from $44,600 to
$162,100 during the same time period.
California is at the top of the state legislature pay
spectrum - for a full time legislature, lawmakers earn
$110,880 annually. New Hampshire is at the opposite
end - with 424 members, each legislator makes only
$100 a year for their annual 45-day legislative
session!
As might be expected, raising politicians’ pay does not
always go over well with voters. In Pennsylvania, 17
incumbents were ousted in the 2006 primary after
voting for a 54% increase of their nearly $70,000
salary. Another 30 legislators chose not to try to seek
re-election with outraged citizens. As a result,
legislators rescinded the pay raise. Even more
modest pay raises were turned down in Indiana,
Arizona, and Nebraska in 2006.
However, the author of the CGS report, Keon Chi,
pointed out, “If legislators are not paid adequately,
then candidates are drawn from a smaller pool... You
can’t expect to attract good candidates with pay that is
lower when compared to other jobs and professions.”
CT legislators such as Rep. Denise Merrill and
Speaker James Amann seem to agree. Both support
a more stable system that acknowledges the amount
of time and work put into the job, without taking a step
toward a full-time legislature.
CT legislators have not seen a pay increase in 6
years. This proposal, which would take effect after the
next election in November 2009, now heads to the
Appropriation Committee for further consideration.
