Better Pay, Stricter Limits (Editorial)

This publication opposed the amendment that formed the Independent Citizens Commission because it forced voters to give legislators longer terms and relieve them of the political discomfort of setting their own salaries in exchange for behaving ethically. But Arkansas voters overwhelmingly adopted the proposal to make three fundamental changes in our state Constitution, so now we need to play the hand we were dealt.

The ICC has the job of setting compensation for legislators, constitutional officers and judges. Let’s talk about legislators first:

Arkansas Business has long advocated raising the salaries of state legislators. Even though the job is part time, it should not be a job that’s only available to the otherwise well-heeled. But the salaries should not be so generous that lawmaking in Arkansas becomes a profession unto itself. There’s no reason to think that voters want anything other than efficient citizen lawmakers paid fairly for the demands of the job they were elected to do.

Because Amendment 94 seems to be all about trade-offs for things that voters should have been able to expect anyway, we want those higher salaries to come with more transparency and hard limits. One of the most infuriating practices we’ve observed is legislators padding their per diems by attending meetings of committees to which they do not belong.

Dear ICC, as representatives of the taxpayers, please put a stop to that kind of thing. Legislators who have an interest in other committees should be free to attend those meetings like any other citizen. They should not get paid to be there.

A lawsuit settled in 2012 stopped legislators from claiming reimbursement for expenses they may not have incurred, so the ICC needs to make sure that it anticipates other sneaky attempts to make being a legislator pay more than intended. Because, yes, even elected officials have been known to look for lucrative loopholes.