Among the good ideas destined to slowly perish in a dead-end legislative committee is a proposal by some GOP lawmakers to repeal the controversial 61 percent pay raise enacted by the 2007 Legislature.
Lawmakers knew how the public would react to raising their own pay by such a whopping amount, so both houses passed the raise on a voice vote, which would give individual lawmakers a measure of deniable plausibility. The vote was later recorded when lawmakers overrode Gov. Bob Riley’s veto.
Efforts to rescind the pay hike last year failed, and some lawmakers argued that they had run for office with the understanding that the compensation would be what is reflected by the increase and its ties to the Consumer Price Index. That works out to about $52,000 today.
That’s a fair expectation, but should not be a deal breaker. Changes established in any legislation should be scheduled to take place after the current quadrennium.
Legislation proposed by Sens. Phil Williams and Bryan Taylor and Rep. Mike Ball would repeal the 2007 pay hike and replace it with a salary tied to Alabama’s median household income. It would set lawmaker pay with increases pegged to the same prosperity of the median household, and would prevent legislators from raising their own pay without a vote of the people.
That’s a win-win. Lawmakers, who had seen no pay increase in more than 15 years before the 2007 increase, would have generous compensation for their part-time work. Taxpayers would have access to a transparent pay system for lawmakers, whose existing compensation is so opaque that it’s likely the lawmakers themselves don’t know exactly how it all works. Those lawmakers who sought and won their offices with the expectation of the current pay would receive that until the end of this term, and they can decide whether they want to ask voters to send them back to Montgomery under a different compensation mechanism.
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