Permanent legislature in Richmond?
By JR Hoeft | Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 | PolicyWe podcasted about it.
Jim (21:35) “We have a citizen legislature which requires our public servants to have second careers…and so, Phil Hamilton, with his background in education, one would only presume that he would be affiliated with higher education, like ODU.”
Waldo continued the discussion on Weekend Virginia and spilled it over onto his blog.
Vivian strikes a familiar theme.
Shaun takes it to a new level though.
In addition to calling out Deeds, McClellan, and M. Warner as examples of using government to further personal benefit, Shaun argues a defense for keeping the citizen legislature. He cites three reasons to maintain the legislature as a temporary gig:
- No legislature will be made ethical by providing it with more money.
- Just who else is on the state dole?
- The bigger the government the bigger the lure.
And goes onto say:
“The problem is the culture, that somehow legislators are expected and somehow entitled to a slice of the pie. Let’s face it, when you have so many people at the trough, with so much money being squeezed out of taxpayers and doled back out, is it so hard to see the temptation?
“I would prescribe the exact opposite — avoid the near occasion of sin. Personally, I would shorten the session. And I’d reduce every delegate’s and senator’s pay to zero and cut their staff to nothing. Why? Because I do believe that public service is just that — a service to the public.”
During our most recent discussion, I mentioned to Shaun that I thought Hamilton fell from grace so easily because I believe this is neither the first time he has done something like this, nor the first time something like this has happened in the GA. I’m betting that you haven’t heard much from our delegates about this because, frankly, many are probably worried they’re culpable as well – if not complicit in the behavior.
Therefore, I’d like to first see an investigation across the board in the GA to see if I’m right.
How widespread are these deals?
That’s the logical first step. Before we begin using Hamilton’s example to leap to conclusions about the nature and compensation of service in the General Assembly – and call for widespread reform of a 400 year institution – we should probably have a firm understanding of what we’re dealing with first.
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About the author
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
Comments
6 Responses to "Permanent legislature in Richmond?"
Under this belief system if you doubled or tripled Congressmen salaries we would stop bribery. It is a dumb arguement to say we should have a full time legislature. Insead we should have a legislature that meets every other year and meets only one week in the off year to do budget amendments. That would require less of the legislators time.
Look at New York and see what happens when you have a full time legislature
I agree. I wrote a column about people, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial page drawing the wrong lessons from the Hamilton situation.
These guys aren’t underpaid. Hamilton was making more than $100K a year on the public payroll. What they are is under regulated.
Proposing a full-time legislature as a response to the Hamilton situation is like injecting yourself with anthrax to cure a mild case of acne.
A full time legislature would have to find something to do full time, which doesn’t bode well for anyone’s “life, liberty or property.”
No no… Waldo is right… he is practically an academic so I’m sure he spent a lot of time thinking about this… just ask him, he’ll tell you.
While I am not necessarily in favor of changing the legislature to full time, I do think there is some warrant to the idea that the fact that our state legislators must have another job is valid. I say this because while they are only in Richmond for 3 months or so a year, they are expected to participate in and do many, many things in those other months that make it nearly impossible to have a traditional 9-5 job. The 3 months in Richmond alone pretty much see to this, especially because of WHEN they are in Richmond. As for people not talking because they are scared, I find that ridiculous and somewhat insulting, how about they are not commenting because they refuse to participate in the media trial and conviction of Del. Hamilton?
[...] Hoeft isn’t quite sure that we need to do anything just yet. Therefore, I’d like to first see an investigation across [...]
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