Regular readers – happy Mother’s Day mom – may remember that on December 12, 2012, during a 40-day, 40-night junket to Mt. Sinai, Wry Wing Politics heard a voice telling it:
…we pay the folks who make our laws, struggle with our most controversial societal issues, and manage billions of our hard earned tax dollars substantially less than we pay the average sewage worker ($37,000/year), clown ($38,000/year), mall cop ($45,000/year), social worker ($40,000/year), and garbage collector ($43,000/year).
Minnesota’s legislative salaries are set by the Legislature. Obviously, legislators don’t keep their salaries at $31,141 because they think it’s the correct level to draw the best people. They do it because they realize that raising their own salary brings the voters’ wrath. Their salary-related decisionmaking is driven by fear, not an objective market assessment.
This is an area that is ripe for reform. …there must be a way to take legislator salary-setting away from legislators, and stop all of this destructive self-flagellation.
WWP then delivereth stone pixel tablets authoritatively declaring:
Maybe legislators could authorize some kind of independent Legislative Salary Commission to set salaries.
Confronted with the profound wisdom embodied in said stone pixel tablets, legislators saweth the light, and yesterday passed legislation to put on the ballot a state constitutional amendment spinfully titled “Remove Lawmakers’ Power to Set Their Own Pay.”
If ultimately embraced by the Senate and Governor, the ballot measure would ask voters whether the Minnesota Constitution should “be amended to remove state lawmakers’ power to set their own salaries, and instead establish an independent, citizens-only council to prescribe salaries for lawmakers?”
Blogging doesn’t pay much, but the whole omnipotence thing doesn’t suck.
Become a member of our dynamic Minnesota House of Representatives team! We are seeking candidates with deep professional experience, strong educational background, extensive community ties, impeccable personal ethics and morals, outstanding interpersonal skills, uncommon diplomatic acumen, stellar leadership qualities, deep policy expertise in several different areas, and a highly photogenic family. Come associate your good name with an organization that has the approval of a historically low 17 percent of your friends and neighbors. Candidates must be willing to work round the clock, seven days per week, surrounded by often manipulative, self-serving colleagues and associates, many masquerading as friends. Even the most talented employees should be expected to remain largely silent and powerless for several years, due to seniority rules that ensure that major decisions are shaped by senior committee chairs and caucus leaders from gerrymandered-safe legislative seats. Employees will be constantly criticized by news reporters, snarky bloggers and anonymous Tweeters, often based on inaccurate or incomplete information. Employees shouldn’t be surprised if they are audited, scrutinized and prosecuted for partisan purposes. Even the most highly accomplished employees will be automatically fired every two years. However, employees willing to work round the clock may earn rehiring, following thousands of job interviews conducted by hostile and lightly informed interrogators who are often basing their rehiring decision on just one of the thousands of official decisions the employee has made over the course of their career. To finance the rehirement attempt, employees will be expected to continually raise large sums of money from friends, relatives, neighbors, strangers and interest groups making shady demands. The non-negotiable salary for this position is less than the average salary of a sewage worker, $31,141 per year.
