{"id":915,"date":"2013-05-19T16:44:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-19T21:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/?p=915"},"modified":"2013-05-19T16:47:41","modified_gmt":"2013-05-19T21:47:41","slug":"legislative-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nathanhunstad.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/legislative-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislative Pay"},"content":{"rendered":"

I generally believe in voting \u201cNo\u201d on all amendments to our state constitution. Sometimes, it\u2019s a \u201cHell No!\u201d because I truly think it\u2019s a bad amendment: see last year\u2019s amendments on gay marriage and photo ID, for example. But most of the time, I vote no not because I think it\u2019s a terrible idea, but because I think that aside from granting rights to people, the constitution should not be a dumping ground for policy. I voted no on the legacy amendment for this reason, for example. In fact, the only amendment I can think of where I voted yes was the dedication of the motor vehicle sales tax to transportation purposes, because I think that was the intent of that sales tax all along. But barring those kinds of issues, I\u2019m going to vote no. And it looks like I may have a chance to vote no on another amendment in the near future, if the proposed amendment on legislative pay gets put on the ballot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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I strongly believe that legislators need a huge raise. They currently make $31,140 per year<\/a> for what is at least a full-time job. Per-diem can bump this up a bit, but it\u2019s still not enough considering the amount of work they do: if the state of Minnesota were a company, its revenues would be about the same<\/a> as companies like Kohl\u2019s and Whirlpool<\/a>. Considering that legislators are in session for one half of the year, and they have plenty of opportunities for legislative work the other half, they have to give up pretty much give up any existing full-time job to be a legislator. This is a very tough thing to do, which is why so many legislators have jobs<\/a> where being absent for half the year is easier.<\/p>\n

No, what I don\u2019t like about this amendment is a special hatred I have for that mythical bugaboo the \u201cNon-partisan commission\u201d. Every time I see a proposal to take some contentious debate out of the hands of legislators \u2013 be it pay, redistricting, or what have you — and put in the hands of commissions, I want to pull my hair out. There is no such thing as \u201cnon-partisan\u201d. Every home, every workplace, every organization is political. What you get with \u201cnon-partisan\u201d commissions is a lack of team uniforms: you don\u2019t know who is on which side. Rest assured, however, that they are<\/strong> on a side. At least when legislators are debating, you know who is doing what and you can hold them directly accountable. How do constituents hold non-partisan commissions responsible?<\/p>\n

I understand why the legislature is taking this route: who would want to be the subject of countless investigative news stories about how they are voting themselves more money? Even so, consider this: the legislature just took a very hard stand in favor of expanding our rights (and that\u2019s something I would have happily voted for in an amendment). How hard can it really be to convince the public you need a raise?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I generally believe in voting \u201cNo\u201d on all amendments to our state constitution. Sometimes, it\u2019s a \u201cHell No!\u201d because I truly think it\u2019s a bad amendment: see last year\u2019s amendments on gay marriage and photo ID, for example. But most of the time, I vote no not because I think it\u2019s a terrible idea, but… Continue reading Legislative Pay<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[223,233],"class_list":["post-915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-legislature","tag-pay","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t