Pay raises for New York's 212 legislators have to come with this essential condition. The legislators have to do their part to reform state government. That means giving up the power to draw their own districts and imposing much tougher campaign finance laws. Until the Legislature agrees to such reforms, it's an institution that defies the very spirit of democracy and remains committed to the re-election of its own members above all else. It's because legislators control the redistricting process, and benefit from notoriously weak campaign finance laws, that it takes either unspeakable scandal and or criminal indictment to vote an incumbent out of office -- if even then.
While the proposed raise for legislators will be less than a drop in $4.4 billion dollar bucket of budget shortfalls, Craig Johnson does a couple great things with the statement he issued today regarding those pay raises and those things have little to do with the fairly inconsequential fiscal ramifications of the rumored deal.
STATEMENT BY SENATOR CRAIG M. JOHNSON, ON REPORTS OF A PROSPECTIVE LEGISLATIVE PAY RAISE
"With the softening economy, a looming state budget battle over the fate of our schools and our children, and the mountain of legislative work that this majority seems to have little interest in completing, I do not think it is appropriate, or prudent, to be considering a legislative pay raise at this time.
I will vote against such a bill if it comes to the floor.
If it passes, I intend to donate this extra pay to worthy non-profit organizations within the 7th Senate District. First on the list would be organizations that had member item funds secured by my predecessor, only to have them revoked by the Senate Republicans after my election."
All emphasis mine.
First, I appreciate the bit about the "mountain of legislative work that this majority seems to have little interest in completing." No Reform, No Raise", anyone?
Second, it never hurts to remind folks that Bruno's boys, yanked all those promised member item dollars after they lost the seat, much like after they lost Spano's seat as well. And they did it out of nothing more than spite.
State Senator Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) has been in office a little less than a year, a fact he readily concedes. This did not prevent him from complaining about his base pay of $79,500 and doing so in a thoroughly offensive manner. He went so far as to claim that his base pay, the third highest rate of pay for any state legislature in the nation and for which he is performing a part time job, "qualifies (him) for public assistance." It was quite a spectacle.
There are plenty of folks in the Senator's district that work two and three jobs to make half of his base pay. Some of them qualify for public assistance. There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, many in his own district, who work two or three jobs and are scared to death that they will lose their homes as the subprime lending mess continues to snowball. There are millions of New Yorkers who are struggling just to pay their skyrocketing property taxes while working more than one job while Senator Adams says to his colleagues "I don't know how some of you are making it" on $80K a year BASE pay.
He then has the gall to tell the Senate, the taxpayers of New York and his own constituents to "Show me the mon-ey! Show me the mon-ey! That's what it's all about."
It was an offensive display and Senator Adams should be ashamed of himself. The man has been in the Senate for less than a year and has done little of note as far as I can tell. Yet, he feels he deserves a significant raise in pay. It's not like you didn't know what we pay legislators when campaigned for the job, Senator.
For the record, I have no problem with raising the pay of lawmakers. It has been quite some time since they had a raise. I get that. But that raise needs to be earned. Want a raise, Senator Adams? EARN IT. Deliver.
When you are able to deliver on some basic and badly needed reforms, get back to us. I'd gladly support a raise. Until then, may I suggest you do what everyone else in such a situation has to do. Get a second job. You're a smart guy, a former cop. I'm sure you won't have trouble landing another part time gig.
New York lawmakers are apparently poised to raise their own salaries, possibly by more than 20 percent. If they do, the question is what we - the taxpayers - will get in return.
There is no way that any reasonable person can argue that this Legislature has actually earned a pay raise. So for months now, Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been trying to get the legislators to pass modest campaign finance reform in exchange for more pay.
Senate Republicans, now in full battle with the governor, have so far resisted the deal. But stiffening the campaign finance reform rules is the very least the Legislature should do before Mr. Spitzer agrees to the creation of a commission that would raise legislators' pay automatically in the future.
The governor should, in fact, insist on more. It is hard to imagine that he has the political clout to get it, but in addition to campaign finance reform he should insist that the legislators be more transparent about the work they do on the side.
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Nominally public servants, Albany's lawmakers are more secretive than all but the most private corporations about their own affairs. Even when a legislator appears to step over the line - ethically, morally or even legally - the matter goes to the Legislative Ethics Commission to investigate. But that, as Russ Haven of New York Public Interest Research Group says, is "like being sucked into a black hole." The commission's real job seems to be making all its investigations magically disappear.
If Mr. Bruno will not reveal what he does in his private dealings, and if lawyers like Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, insist on keeping mum about outside legal work, aren't they thumbing their noses at the public? And if they and other legislators continue to hide their private work and their conflicts of interest, hasn't the time come to start thinking revolutionary thoughts, like having full-time legislators?
True, we would have to pay them more than the $79,500 they make now. But it would be worth it if they really, absolutely, finally joined judges and top state officeholders and rank-and-file state employees whose full-time job as public servants is to serve the public's interest.
Apparently there are some legislators in Albany who are trying to run out the clock on this session on campaign finance reform while also using that ticking clock to pressure the Governor to relent on the issue of legislative pay raises. I, for one, am calling BS on that tactic. As I have said time and time again, I am not completely opposed to the notion of raising lawmaker's pay on principle, but I am firm believer that those lawmakers need to earn such a hike in pay. The New York Sun reports from Albany:
Pressure is building on Governor Spitzer to back down from his demands and grant lawmakers their first pay raise in more than eight years.
Earlier this year, Mr. Spitzer indicated he would not give his consent to a pay raise unless the Legislature approved his plan to significantly lower campaign contribution limits and impose other restrictions on political giving.
Now, with time running out in the legislative session and Senate Republicans showing no signs of yielding on their opposition to the governor's campaign finance proposal, Mr. Spitzer faces a tough choice: Either he adjusts his demands or risks alienating lawmakers, particularly Assembly Democrats, who have made no secret of their desire for a bigger paycheck.
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...The governor, however, needs the cooperation of the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, who is under pressure from his own members to deliver a pay raise.
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By refusing to compromise on pay raise, Mr. Spitzer also risks angering state judges, who have not received a salary increase since 1999. Chief Judge Judith Kaye has been so enflamed over the issue that she has threatened to sue the state. Mr. Spitzer supports giving judges more money, but lawmakers have refused to approve a judiciary pay raise bill that does not increase their own pay as well.
Lawmakers are predicting that Mr. Spitzer will break the logjam and downgrade his demands on a campaign finance bill. In April, the governor said talks between his administration and Senate Republicans collapsed because lawmakers would not agree to ban political contributions from limited liability companies, which can give the same amount as individuals and have been used by wealthy donors as a tool for unlimited giving, as donors can set up as many as the entities as they choose.
"I think you have to lower the bar," the minority leader of the state Senate, Malcolm Smith of Queens, said. "There has to be something everybody can live with." Mr. Smith said he thought the Legislature and the governor would come to an agreement before session ends on June 21.
I disagree, Mr. Smith. We've been lowering the bar for decades and look where that has gotten us.
Want a raise? Deliver meaningful campaign finance reform.
Capitol Confidential is reporting that State Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith and his caucus are pulling out of deal to raise their pay along with that of state judges.
Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith intends to announce today that Democratic senators are pulling out of the legislative and judical pay raise bill they signed onto last week with all the Republicans.
The bill was introduced mid-week last week even though it was clear by then that Smith's Democratic allies, Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Lt. Gov. David Paterson, were fighting with the GOP senators over campaign finance reform.
Smith's troops' withdrawal is a result of the lack of progress in a campaign finance reform agreement, Smith's aides say.
Though I think that the judges have a legitimate case and they really should be getting a raise, the Legislature has got some work to do first. As we have said since we NYBri and I launched this site, we aren't opposed to the idea of a raise for lawmakers, but they should have to EARN it.
Smith said he no longer will support the Senate Republicans' measure because the slim GOP majority hasn't agreed to campaign finance reform.
"As a result, the members of the minority conference will remove their names as sponsors of Sen. Bruno's pay raise bill," Smith said in a prepared statement. "Moreover, we will oppose this bill absent an agreement by the majority to embrace meaningful campaign finance reform."
Back in December we launched a project we called "No Reform? No Raise!", an effort to compell legislators to earn a pay raise that many members desperately wanted to vote for themselves by first adopting some badly needed reforms. Now it appears that we may have to resurrect that initiative, though this time we may have to call it "No Accountability? No Raise!" or, perhaps, more aptly, "No Guts? No Raise!". Once again, it's the Assembly Dems that are pushing an idea that would raise legislator's pay, only this proposal would make such increases automatic, freeing them from having to actually having to vote for them. The New York Daily News has more:
State lawmakers would get automatic pay raises every four years, without having to take the politically risky vote to beef up their own paychecks, under a new bill Assembly Democrats are pushing.
The Assembly is adopting Chief Judge Judith Kaye's proposal to set up a salary review commission that would adjust the pay of both lawmakers and judges every four years, a spokesman for Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) confirmed last night.
The bill takes the thorny issue of higher salaries for lawmakers out of the legislative process, giving the commission binding authority to set the pay levels.
The base pay for the part-time lawmakers is $79,500 a year, but many earn far more than $90,000 with the extra pay they get for committee and leadership assignments.
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The governor has indicated he is not willing to consider higher pay for lawmakers until they begin adopting legislative reforms.
I'm not unsympathetic to many ofthe arguments made for higher pay for legislators. Really. But, do we really want to remove all accountability from the process? At a minimum, they should earn a raise by actually doing some work in the public interest, by adopting some significant reforms (reforming the rules comes to mind) before considering a raise for part time work. But, relieving themselves from having to take a stand on the issue of legislative pay raises seems cowardly and undemocratic.
Want a raise? Take a stand, lawmakers. Vote for it.
(From the diaries - "Why should I ?" indeed - promoted by lipris)
As a staunch supporter of TAP's "No Reform, No Raise" movement, I sent emails to both by Assemblyman, Jeff Dinowitz and my Senator, Jeff Klein. I have yet to hear back from Senator Klein. However, today I got a personal email from Assemblyman Dinowitz which was rather shocking in it's candidness.
Well, it appears that the "Unextraordinary Session" is drawing to a close. New York lawmakers will not get their much sought after pay hike and Governor Pataki will have to board that plane to Cedar Rapids without his civil confinement bill or his expansion of charter schools he so wished to dangle in front of the republican caucus voters of Iowa.
A special legislative session Wednesday consisted of closed-door meetings and idle lawmakers hanging around the Capitol - but no agreements on sex offenders, charter schools or even pay raises for legislators.
The one piece of legislation that passed was a measure to mandate more insurance coverage for mental-health treatment. The Democrat-led Assembly voted unanimously to approve the measure, called "Timothy's Law," to follow through on an agreement it reached with the Republican-controlled Senate last spring.
It seems the only folks in the state eager to see a pay raise for a Legislature dubbed "the most dysfunctional in the nation" are, well, the legislators themselves. We've been pretty clear as to where we stand on the subject.
The Legislature returns to Albany today and the despicable horse trading with a lame duck Governor with one foot out the door already has begun in earnest. (Can't we just put Pataki on a plane to Cedar Rapids yet?) The Governor has been dangling the prospect of a pay raise in return for deals on some of his pet projects so that he will have something to brag to Iowa republicans about in the months to come.
The whole sordid business smells pretty bad. Here's a sampling of this morning's opinion on the subject from around the state.
Every now and then members of our Legislature lose their already tenuous grasp on reality and stage what amounts to unvarnished extortion: Pay them heaping fistfuls more in salary and, in exchange, they will OK some bauble of favored legislation. Another of these occasions is currently upon taxpayers; the lip-smacking, sloshing and jostling around the public troth in Albany can almost be heard from here.
(From the diaries. Our first response from an elected regarding our No Reform? No Raise! campaign. Have you contacted your reps yet? - promoted by lipris)
I emailed my Senator, Mike Nozzolio, on 11/28/06 to ask him where he stood on this issue. I just received his letter, dated 12/1/06, in which he replied as follows:
Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns with the possibilty of a state legislative pay increase. I appreciate the benefit of your views regarding this matter.
As your State Senator, I fully agree with you and am adamantly opposed to any legislative pay raises at this time.
Back in December we launched a project we called 
Well, it appears that the 
