The Last Democrat Pay Raise Bill Was Greedy. This One's Also Corrupt.

“Poverty for thee, but not for me!”

Last year Vermont Democrats and Progressives put forward a bill (S.39) to raise legislative pay by over double, plus a generous benefits package that regular Vermonters working a similar part time job would not qualify for. Governor Scott vetoed the bill, which passed the House 102-44 and the Senate 19-10 largely along party lines. Needless to say, it was highly unpopular with We the People, and majoriyt leadership decided not to challenge this veto with an override vote.

But, alas, that was not the last to be heard from a particularly greedy cabal of entitled Senators led by Ruth Hardy (D-Addison), Becca White (D-Windsor), and Anne Watson (D/P-Washington), whose goal is to end Vermont’s tradition of a citizen legislature and replace it with an elite, political class of full-time politicians – a.k.a. themselves. (Seriously, just release the flying monkeys already.)  So, this year they are trying again with a “more modest,” ostensibly lower cost alternative, S.224 - An act relating to compensation and benefits for members of the Vermont General Assembly.

The principal “cost saving” measure in S.224 over S.39 is that it removes the nearly $2 million a year in healthcare benefits packages – for now anyway, as the bill retains the study committee that will recommend adding it back in a year.

According to the fiscal note, this new bill also lowers the overall annual expenditure on legislator salaries from S.39’s proposed $6,596,443 to $4,445,904. Great… BUT!!... this bill shifts the remaining money largely away from rank-and-file legislators and gives it to the “Speaker, Pro Tem, [Committee] Chairs, Majority and Minority Leader” – all of whom coincidentally (with the exceptions of the two minority leaders and two committee chairs, one token in each chamber) are Democrats!

Source: Vermont Joint Fiscal Office

According to Seven Days math, “The chairs currently earn about $16,867, only slightly more than rank-and-file members. Under the new system, the chairs would earn $23,790 during the session, plus a stipend and up to 20 days of off-season pay. That’s a total of $34,717, or about $17,850 more than they earn now — a 106 percent increase.” Rank and filers get a significant raise too from their current “$15,180. That would increase to $21,627. The 20 days of off-session pay would add $4,553 for a total of $26,180,” but not nearly as nice as the chairs.

This proposal, apart from just plain milking the taxpayers, creates some serious ethical and political problems. First, as alluded to above, the partisan dynamics of the legislature mean this is an especially big windfall for members of one particular party. It’s a partisan, Democrat money grab.

Currently there are 23 Democrats out of thirty total senators, and there are 14 committees that need a chairs. In the House there are 106 Democrats out of one hundred fifty total, and 17 committees that need chairs. So, of the 33 lawmakers, including the speaker and senate president pro tem, who would be receiving markedly higher salaries, 28 of them would be Democrats. That’s assuming that with nearly ten grand at stake for one of their own Democrat leadership would allow Senator Russ Ingalls (R-Essex) to keep his chair of the Institutions Committee or Representative Mike Marcotte (R-Coventry) his of Commerce and Economic Development.

Which gets me to my next point: This would create a seriously unhealthy, feudal-like intra-caucus hierarchy and patronage system. The party in power controls all the big salaries, and the leadership in that party controls who gets them. So, if you want that chairmanship and the big bucks that come with it, you better be loyal to the Speaker of the House or the Senate President Pro Tem as you smarm your way up that ladder. As a citizen, if you are concerned that our so-called elected representatives are too often doing the bidding of party leadership and not that of their constituents as it is, Katy bar the door if S.224 becomes law!

It's one thing to rhetorically twist someone’s arm to convince them to vote a certain way, refuse to sit with them in the cafeteria, or even to threaten taking away the metaphorical paper hat that comes with a committee chairmanship, but it’s quite another to be able to threaten that person with a loss of $10,000 worth of income if they don’t play ball and do what you say. Or to bribe with such a cash payout for going along. As such, S.224 opens the door for some really corrupt back-room politics that does not serve the interests of truly representative democracy.

Supporters of this specifically bad bill supporting a generally bad idea are spinning it as a way to allow more moderate income Vermonters to run for office. Nonsense. They see it as a way to give their incumbent selves the ability to campaign year-round at taxpayers’ expense, a way to consolidate and keep political power, and to further insulate themselves from having to have a real job and though such experience perhaps better understand the real plights and problems of their constituents.

Campaign for Vermont did a poll at the beginning of this session and found that 77% of Vermont said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who voted to increase their own pay by 100%, 66% much less likely. Well, that’s pretty much every Democrat and Progressive in Montpelier! And it looks like they’re ready to do it twice! Let’s make sure voters remember this sentiment come November.

• Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank.

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Event Notice: Rob Roper will be a guest on WVMT’s Morning Drive on Thursday, January 25, 7 am. Tune in at AM620, FM96.3 or streaming at https://www.wvmtradio.com/show/the-morning-drive/.