They do work more than just their session.

Yes, in a sense… The original intent of the law was to keep legislators from voting themselves payraises without some method of tying in fiscal responsibility. Which still makes sense. So we’d still need some method of doing that.

However, there also needs to be a method of voting in state employee raises without also HAVING to raise legislative pay.

That said, I still do advocate increasing legislator’s pay SOME. If there would have been an honest bill, aimed at increasing legislative pay, I’d have voted for it in a heartbeat. But never in a back-door manner, like the current statute imposes.

About whether legislators should be paid better: ask yourself if YOU could afford to leave your job or business for three months or more. Would your job or business be there when session is done, each and every year?? And if you even HAD a job like that, could you afford it? If not, would you be able to be a legislator? If so, would you want to lose that much money?

Most folks run for legislature because they feel they have something to offer, or a responsibility to perform public service, or… perhaps they have a personal beef or single issue to work on… But most legislators start out for good reasons.

Only the honorable ones continue to.

If you want everyday working people to be involved in setting policy for the state then you have to be able to pay them enough to feed themselves and their families. $10k a year does not get it. Having to be away from home and kids is hard enough on young families, asking them to go bankrupt in the process is too much.

The legislature is in session for 3-4 months, but the work does not stop in April. If a legislator really cares about his or her constituents, there is plenty to do from May to January.

To me the most telling aspect to this debate has been mentioned before: the lack of participation in the election process. When so many seats go uncontested, that ought to tell you something about the attractiveness to the position.

That kind of abuse of the public trust is what makes such harsh responses to any pay raise for elected officials. Give em an inch, and they take the whole bolt of cloth..

Whether it would result in “better laws” is another matter altogether. I doubt it.

Your explanation of the “true cost” of serving rings true to me as well. No wonder there are so many unopposed incumbents.

If you have a family you travel back to see, you fall even farther behind. And that’s IF you have a business or boss that will LET you be away for one fourth of the year and then expect to step back into work when session is over.

I’ve always supported a BIT more pay for our legislature (but not enough to make it attractive to people in highpriced occupations), but I always voted against raises for state employees.

That’s because the same law that prevents the legislature from raising their own salaries without raising all state employess ALSO makes the legislatures’ raises go up when state employees’ do.

Legislators DO need a bit better pay, but it needs to be a clean vote for once, not hidden in state employee pay raises.

And BTW, “State Employee”’s post at the top is so far from the truth, it is laughable! Not a lick of truth in any of it! What a moron…

I do not know how much he spent, but in his campaign to be the KS AG, Morrison raised $1.9 million.

State employee, you are more than an idiot, you are a damn liar. Every action you claimed had taken place has not happened and is against the law. As for campaign funds for their own use – Ethics just fined Rep. Kilpatrick $45K on top of $4K for taing $6K out of her account.

Thankfully you are not a good representation of our state employees!

IEs <– designers of efficient and cost effective processes.

IEs <– programmers of simulation/modeling software.

IEs <– analysts of simulation output.

IEs <– business-savvy engineers

See my post above.

I’d be thrilled if he got merit raises, but no, he only gets raises maybe once every 5 years if he’s lucky. Because they have to be approved by lawmakers. And when they do give out raises, the taxpayers like you bitch.

So shut it for once.

My husband is obviously a super dumb ass just like me. Who in the hell would work where he does for the money they pay him? Oops, I forgot, he’s a super dumb ass just like me.

That’s the most common complaint against raising pay for legislators – they knew the salary when they filed for office.

That’s right. That’s probably why 51 of the 125 state representatives did NOT have a major party opponent in November. That’s over 40% of the state that are not given the opportunity to participate in our democratic system in November due to the failure of one of the parties to recruit a candidate. That’s a travesty and it will only be solved by increasing pay.