PoliGraph: The story behind the legislator pay panel
Who knew eight words could be so controversial?
House Republicans and DFLers are sparring over a proposed constitutional amendment that will be listed on the 2016 ballot as “Remove lawmakers' power to set their own pay.”
Democrats say that’s what the amendment, which sets up an independent committee to dictate how much legislators are paid, would do.
Republicans say the title is misleading because it would almost certainly mean a pay bump for lawmakers.
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There’s no telling what the commission would do if voters approve it, but here’s what you need to know about the proposal.
The Evidence
State lawmakers have made roughly $31,000 a year since 1999 and are currently in charge of setting the rates. (Although the state constitution says a sitting Legislature can’t raise its own pay; it can only approve a raise to take effect after the next state House election). While legislators have discussed and approved pay raises in the past, it’s a discussion fraught with politics.
This session, DFL lawmakers decided to change that.
Last year, the Legislature approved a ballot question that will ask the following:
“Shall the Minnesota Constitution 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?”
This year, both the House and Senate approved some changes to the amendment, including adding approving the ballot question title: “Remove lawmakers' power to set their own pay.”
The bill language goes to lengths to ensure that lawmakers have no say over what they make. For instance, the governor and the state’s Supreme Court chief justice will pick who is on the committee. And members can’t be lobbyists, current or former legislators or the spouse of a current legislator.
But Republicans say that voting for the amendment still amounts to voting to increase legislator pay.
“It is probably 99.9 percent certain that if they allow the commission to go through by voting for it, [voters] will be voting for a pay increase for legislators,” said Rep. Sarah Anderson, R-Plymouth during debate over the bill.
GOP concerns are based largely on what other states did where salary is determined by a commission or non-partisan agency.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, lawmakers in nine states saw their pay increase this year, and in every case, the bump was approved by an outside group.
The other complaint is that the amendment would prevent lawmakers from lowering their salary if the state has a budget crisis.
But the amendment requires the committee to take into account budget concerns when deciding lawmaker pay. Furthermore, the amendment doesn’t change the fact that House and Senate lawmakers can decline their pay, as some did during the 2011 government shutdown (though some got those checks retroactively.)
The Verdict
Claims about what the commission would and wouldn’t do are hard to sort out at this point because voters haven’t approved the constitutional amendment yet, and there’s nothing in the amendment bill that dictates whether the group would be required to approve pay raises – or pay cuts, for that matter.
So for now, PoliGraph is withholding judgement.