🔒Full-time legislature? Maybe not, but lawmakers deserve a pay raise

Should Connecticut move to a full-time legislature?

It's an issue being raised this legislative session and has been debated off and on, somewhat civilly, for as long as I've been involved in politics, and probably much longer than that.

Before we get into whether Connecticut should do this or not, let's stipulate to a few things.

First, we have a part-time citizen legislature in name only.  Being a legislator is, and has been for some time, a year-round job. 

Second, legislators don't make much money, especially given the number of hours they put in. The average salary for a Connecticut legislator is $28,000 a year.  Yes, most of them make a few thousand dollars more than that — through leadership positions mostly — but it's still not a lot of money.  In fact, if legislators were being paid on an hourly rate that rate probably would be well below the minimum wage. 

In other words, they have a year-round job but aren't paid year-round wages. 

That structure greatly limits the number of people who can afford to run for a legislative seat.  If you're really wealthy, it doesn't matter; you can serve and probably not worry about having another job. 

But what if you're not wealthy?  What if you need another job because you need the income?  Well, then, if you want to serve and keep your other full-time job, you better have a really understanding employer. 

Why?  Because during the last four-to-six weeks of the legislative session, give or take a week or two, you'll be spending almost all your time at the Capitol and the Legislative Office Building, attending committee meetings and public hearings, meeting with constituents, and, of course, voting on bills.

The current structure also inherently produces what some people think are conflicts of interest.  If you're a lawyer you'll end up voting on issues that affect the judicial branch of government, and you may end up voting on issues that directly impact your specific practice area. 

If you're a teacher, you're voting on how much money to send cities and towns for their local public schools.  If you work for a hospital, if you work for an insurance company, if you … well, you get the point. 

Are those conflicts of interest?  I'm not sure.  That's what the Office of State Ethics is for. But, because most legislators need another income, these situations are unavoidable.

But what if we had a full-time legislature, and we paid legislators something closer to a full-time salary — the way they do in, say, New York for example?  It would certainly allow more people to serve, and it would eliminate the conflict-of-interest issue for most legislators.  It would also be more intellectually honest.

But would it be better? Opponents of doing this will point to New York, for example, and all the corruption that has occurred there, and use that as the rationale for their opposition. 

But that's not a valid reason, as there are plenty of full-time legislatures where corruption is not pandemic. 

My position: Let's keep the current legislative calendar. The General Assembly is in session for six months during odd-numbered years and three months during even-numbered years.  That's plenty enough time for legislators to get the legislative piece of their jobs done.

But for God's sake, let's pay these people commensurate with the amount of work they do, and the time they put in.

We might just see a lot more people interested in running and serving.

Roy Occhiogrosso is the managing director of Global Strategy Group in Hartford, a public relations and research firm. He also served as a senior advisor to former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.