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Story Archives: Pay raise amendment needed
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Pay raise amendment needed
When legislators last summer approved a 123-percent pay raise for themselves, Louisianians were appropriately outraged and pushed Gov. Bobby Jindal to veto the measure.
But the amount was not the only expression of the lawmakers' greed. Citizens were just as angered by the Legislature's desire to make the pay raise effective immediately, instead of waiting until the next term.
Now Louisianians will get to vote on a constitutional amendment that would prohibit lawmakers from giving themselves, and other state officials, a pay raise that would take effect in the same term in which it's approved.
That is a good idea, and lawmakers deserve credit for putting the item on the next statewide ballot in November 2010.
State Sen. Joe McPherson, who sponsored the proposal, said that if such a restriction had been in place last year, the political firestorm over the lawmakers' pay raise could have been prevented.
That's a bit of wishful thinking. Louisianians would not have swallowed last year's obscene pay raise even if lawmakers had decided it would not take effect until the next term.
But there's an inherent conflict in lawmakers having the ability to give themselves pay raises that go in effect before a new term begins -- and thus before voters decide whether to re-elect those officials or choose someone else. The proposed amendment addresses that deficiency.
The amendment's restriction also would apply to future pay raises for the governor and other statewide elected officials, as well as members of the Public Service Commission.
The proposal would not change what lawmakers and public officials make now. By the same token, it would not restrict the Legislature's ability to approve a pay raise in the first place.
But lawmakers could not give themselves an immediate pay increase, as they tried to do last year -- and that would be a move in the right direction.
--The Times-Picayune |
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