Paying legislators might change political culture

Paying legislators is one of the proposals being discussed by Gov. Bill Richardson’s task force on ethics reform. It’s an idea worth consideration.

Because New Mexico does not pay its legislators, we have a class of people drafting our laws and setting the budget who are not representative of the state’s citizens. In general, only the wealthy, successfully self-employed, retired and top government employees can afford to serve, especially in districts far from Santa Fe, where travel is expensive and timely.

Paying legislators would give more New Mexicans the ability to serve, which could increase competition for seats and push our legislators to follow higher ethical standards. We have many excellent legislators, but others show up for committee meetings just to give speeches, collect per diem and leave.

On the flip side, we must not create a full-time legislature. The last thing we need is an elite class of representatives who spend almost all their time in Santa Fe and don’t understand the needs of their districts. Creating a full-time legislature would motivate some to seek office for the pay, not because they want to serve.

In this year’s session, State Sen. Leonard “Lee” Rawson, R-Las Cruces, proposed a Constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would create a salary for state legislators equal to 15 percent of the salary paid to federal lawmakers. This year, that would have resulted in an annual salary of $24,780.

It would have cost us $2.8 million to pay that to our 112 legislators this year, a reasonable expense in a $5.2 billion budget.

Rawson is aware of the complexities of this issue. He said he doesn’t necessarily support paying legislators, but wanted to start a discussion.

“The legislature no longer represents the population in New Mexico,” Rawson said. “We need to reassess.”

Rawson, a longtime lawmaker, realizes that giving more New Mexicans the ability to run for legislative seats and breaking up what he calls the “good-ol’-boy network” could mean more challenges to his position.

But he said that’s OK.

“There are a lot of people in my district who could do every bit as good a job as I believe I’m doing, but can’t simply because they’re too busy taking care of their responsibilities,” he said.

Paying lawmakers could change the culture of the legislature. Though some legislators support opening conference committees to the public, the House and Senate won’t allow that because the majority of legislators like being behind closed doors when they finalize bills.

That’s the sort of attitude that is born at the Roundhouse and has become the norm in New Mexico politics on the state and local level.

That’s wrong. The public deserves to know how and why decisions are made. A legislature populated by more everyday citizens might be inclined to give the public access and input.

The ethics task force is considering other proposals, including banning some gifts, limiting campaign contributions and enacting tougher campaign finance reporting laws. It will make recommendations to the governor and legislature before the start of the next session.

We can place more regulations and requirements on our public officials, but rules can always be broken by the bad. Too many rules can discourage those who are honest from running for office.

I’m not against banning gifts, limiting contributions and increasing reporting requirements. Those proposals would benefit the state.

But rules alone can’t change a culture.

The voters would have to approve legislative salaries. Convincing them to pay lawmakers many don’t trust might be difficult, but this is the most important proposal before Richardson’s ethics task force.

Creating a more ethical political culture, not enacting more rules, should be the goal.