Give Yourself a Raise (Opinion)

A proposed settlement has been reached in the lawsuit filed last fall by the Arkansas Public Law Center in an attempt to bring transparency to the pay members of the Arkansas Senate and House of Representatives receive for their service.

Whatever the plaintiffs and the Arkansas Attorney General can agree to — essentially documentation of actual expenses incurred in the performance of official duties — is acceptable to us because we hope it is merely a temporary fix. A real solution will require Arkansans to get realistic about the cost of having a legislature that meets every year.

Some history: Last spring, blogger Matt Campbell at the left-leaning BlueHogReport.com, now defunct, revealed that most legislators were collecting between $1,200 and $2,350 per month in “reimbursements” without ever having to document that they incurred legitimate expenses. And while Campbell set out to embarrass Republicans, especially those who voted against a $6,400 increase in annual funding for the Arkansas School for the Deaf while padding their individual incomes by more than that, he acknowledged the practice had been almost universal on both sides of the aisle.

Campbell’s reporting inspired the lawsuit, which named senators and representatives of both parties as defendants and accused them of illegal exaction — forcing taxpayers to pay for something in violation of existing law. And paying legislators thousands of dollars a year for expenses that haven’t been documented does seem like a straight-up violation of Amendment 70, which voters adopted in the wake of Steve Clark’s scandalous expense padding as attorney general a couple of decades ago.

Even “fiscal conservatives” have complained that their official salaries — roughly $16,000 plus mileage and per diem payments for attending official meetings — are inadequate to make public service possible for folks who aren’t independently wealthy. It is a complaint that has merit. But the answer to a law that isn’t working is not to circumvent it. And, as it happens, the same legislators have the power to propose new laws.

Raise the salaries of legislators. Do it above-board, not under the table through subterfuge and fiction.