Connecticut Local Politics has a post up discussing the potential for a salary hike for Connecticut legislators.
Genghis Conn offers these thoughts:
I think all legislators, including the leaders, should have a raise in their pay. Here’s why:
- The legislature is becoming less and less part time. There have been special sessions almost every year for a long time, and the legislature is certainly more than a full-time pursuit when it’s in session.
- Find me a job, other than lawyer, which allows its employees to be gone for half of the year, not to mention extras like hearings, special sessions and campaigning. There are very few–and almost none of them are jobs that most middle-class people have.
- $28,000 is not enough to live on if being a legislator is one’s only career.
- Therefore, it’s no wonder the General Assembly is thick with lawyers and members of the upper class. I couldn’t afford to be a member, and neither could a lot of others.
If we are going to have full-time or essentially-full-time legislators, then I’d have to agree that $28k is not enough, and we ought to pay a competitive salary.
However, that assumes that legislators need to be legislating on a full-time or essentially-full-time basis. I’m far from convinced that that must be the case.
I’d be happier seeing a lean, mean state legislature — meeting in person only as necessary, perhaps only during evenings and weekends, and handling discussion and informal debate online, as their full-time-job schedules permit.
This has the advantage of, in theory at least, keeping legislators in the real world, among the folks they’re supposed to be representing.
Perhaps also requiring employers to provide a certain amount of paid leave time, akin to what is done for jury duty, and maybe with a sweetener of providing a tax credit for the employer to compensate for the loss of the employee’s services for that time, to facilitate some daytime meetings, would help make it possible for “ordinary” folks like you and I, who might have an interest in serving in the state house but who don’t want to sacrifice our real, and presumably-better-paying, careers to serve.