Lynn and I are Westerners. Lynn was born in Caldwell, spent most of her childhood years in Havre Montana, and raised her family in Eagle Idaho.
I was born in Minot North Dakota, followed our military family in several States and then I was raised through high school in Ohio. For the last 36 years I have lived in Boise and Garden City. Between our two families we have raised 5 boys. Throughout our entire adult lives, Lynn and I have worked for a living, paid taxes, and been proud citizens and supporters of our own families and most of all our church and communities.
As we have talked to lifelong friends who also live in the West, we were reminded recently of a very conservative legislature in a Western State that created a scheme to give themselves a pay raise. These solons of honor, integrity, and proponents of “complete transparency” have created a process whereby a group of experts was tasked with meeting, outside of the legislative session, to review the pros and cons of giving their citizen legislators a pay raise. The citizen legislators, who serve as citizen legislators precisely because the citizens of that State want people with real life expertise and experience, who are not dependent on a salary outside of their full-time jobs and vocations, to be their representatives.
This particular State has always had an ethos regarding citizen legislators of “service before self”. The citizen legislator in this particular State receives a salary of around $22 thousand dollars for three months/year of service—which calculates to $88,000/ year if the session met full time. They receive a per diem for living expenses while in session and receive Health insurance for themselves and their families of between $7000/ year to over $15,000/year depending on how many dependents are covered.
The process that has been designed not only by legislators but also by their “expert advisors” with the imprimatur of those in the Governor’s Office and in leadership positions, is designed to not make the various legislators who are the representatives of We The People, have to take a public vote or even state their position regarding their own pay raise. One of my friends’ neighbors who is in a leadership position in this Western State said that if leadership did not support this boondoggle their own leadership positions would be in jeopardy. So, the legislators hold all the cards. They have pressured for a pay raise for themselves, and they don’t have to take a public position or even vote on the raise—the raise by the way is estimated to be between 32-38% depending on whether health care benefits are put into the denominator. The other point is what kind of pressure will this put on the legislature in this Western State to raise wages for State employees and for those organizations that receive subsidies and transfer payments that are allocated and appropriated by the legislators who can only hide in the umbra of shenanigan and chicanery for so long.
My friend said that conservative citizens in this Western State will insist that before any pay raises are considered for legislators or public employees that taxes need to be cut, government needs to shrink, and costs need to be contained—only then should pay raises be considered for citizen a legislature that meets only three months a year. “Who is serving whom, he is asking?”
I told my friend that this could never happen in Idaho where we also have a citizen’s legislature and a group of conservatives who are committed to full transparency and to cutting both costs and taxes!
NEVER IN IDAHO COULD THIS HAPPEN
THIS IS NOT THE WAY OF THE WEST. It sounds more like what happens in Washington DC. Since over 50% of all state revenues come from the Feds, maybe there is a program to help pay the legislators in all the States in question since Covid funds are no longer available! Everything else in life seems to be subsidized!
SHHHHH Don’t say anything about this to any Idaho legislators. I have met very few who can turn their backs on a revenue stream they don’t have to vote on, free lunch at the Arid Club, and maybe even a pay raise for themselves.
