Legislators deserve a pay increase — if they do the job

According to a recent South Dakota Searchlight story, legislators could get a 4% raise when they gather in Pierre this January. Legislator pay is set at 20% of the state’s household median income as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. The median household income is expected to go up this year, bumping annual legislative salaries from $15,970 to $16,608.

Tying legislator pay to the median household income was a smart move on the part of the Legislature. It was always awkward for lawmakers to propose, justify and vote on raises for themselves. That’s particularly true for lawmakers who specifically campaign on going to the Capitol to cut spending and government waste.

In years like this, the state budget’s “Big Three”— state employees, education and health care — probably wish they had a deal just like lawmakers. A 4% raise looks pretty good to them, after initially getting no raise in the governor’s proposed budget. At the end of the last session, they did get a 1.4% raise. However, there is a catch in the Legislature’s deal that may give the Big Three pause about asking for similar treatment. One of the selling points for lawmakers, one of the ways they justified making themselves eligible for a raise every year, was the notion that their pay could go down if the state’s median household income dropped.

Lawmaker salaries could top $16,000 during next year’s South Dakota legislative session

More than 16 grand seems like a generous paycheck for spending nine weeks in Pierre. The legislative session, however, is far from the only responsibility of our elected officials.

They serve on a wide variety of standing committees that can meet throughout the rest of the year. There are summer study committees exploring special topics. Sometimes that exploration can take lawmakers on the road as they seek testimony across the state from stakeholders and taxpayers.

Another call on their time includes the opportunity to attend conferences and seminars. It’s easy to scoff at these as taxpayer-funded junkets, but they often provide the best chance for citizen-legislators to get the training that they need.

Any effort to boost the pay for lawmakers serves to open the door to a more diversified Legislature. For too long the Legislature was largely the domain of lawyers, farmers and the retired — the only people who could afford to spend the winter in Pierre. Paying better wages opens up the possibility of seeing more younger people, more businesspeople and more women elected to office.

South Dakotans can’t afford to cheap out on legislator pay if they want to expect adequate, professional representation in Pierre. By the same standard, lawmakers have to earn that pay. In the recent past, thanks to the shenanigans of some lawmakers, the ship of state has sometimes resembled a showboat.

Lawmaking should be serious business, but some legislators take a less than serious approach. Examples include:

• An adopted resolution to “seek the Lord most high,” admonishing South Dakotans to pray and fast every July.
• Failed legislation seeking to place the 10 Commandments in every public school classroom.
• One legislator pulling a vanishing act before a critical vote on economic development incentives for data centers.
• Risking millions in federal highway funding for a bill that would have allowed drivers and passengers the personal freedom to not wear a seat belt.
• Seeking, unsuccessfully, to deny funding for the Huron School District over its bathroom policy.
• Proposing, until cooler heads prevailed, to return $87 million in federal funds earmarked for high-speed internet access over worries about the national debt.
• Attempting to relitigate the COVID-19 pandemic by seeking legitimacy for drugs that have a less than legitimate background.
• Threatening to put librarians in handcuffs if they allowed obscene material to fall into the hands of minors.

Serving as a legislator takes an odd combination of political ambition, policy expertise and winter driving skills. It should also take a level of professionalism and seriousness that won’t cause taxpayers to raise their eyebrows when they hear that lawmakers are getting a raise in pay. As the pay for legislators increases, we can only hope that the level of their competence increases as well.