HAVE THEY NO SHAME?

IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC AND BUDGET CRISIS THE LEGISLATURE GIVES THEMSELVES

A HUNORMOUS PAY RAISE

HAVE THEY NO SHAME?

THE WATCHMAN

Many people in this nation feel that politicians turn a death ear to those they are supposed to serve. Politicians in turn do not understand why their constituents are not pleased with their performance. Those of us who study politics wonder why if people are so unhappy about their performance why they keep voting for them. What is particularly troubling is when they allow something to happen during a fiscal shortfall and claim there was nothing, they could do to stop it. The only people they are fooling are themselves.

What brought our attention to this story was this article from News Channel 9. Now here we are in the middle of a pandemic, thousands of people unemployed, scraping to get buy and our alleged leaders who are supposed to work for us are giving themselves a 35% pay raise. Have they earned it, not in our book. Do they deserve it? No way in hell. Could it have been stopped? Yes, if they had wanted to. If there was ever a reason to vote people out of office this is it. It appears that they feel that just because tax revenue is down, and the state's budget has been cut that they deserve a pay raise.

In fairness, your elected officials never voted for this raise. They never voted against it either. You see there is the Board on Legislative Compensation that sets the pay for these part time employees. Who are these board members, well frankly we do not know. We can tell you that according to this article they figured out a shifty way to lay the blame on someone else. According to the article, “In order to regulate compensation paid to the Legislature, the Oklahoma Constitution creates the Board on Legislative Compensation. The board shall be composed of five members appointed by the Governor, two members appointed by the President Pro Tem of the Senate, and two members appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The members appointed by the Governor must be from religious organizations, communications media, non-state supported educational institutions, labor organizations, and retail business. The members appointed by the President Pro Tem of the Senate shall be from agricultural and civic organizations and the members appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall be from manufacturing and from professional fields not otherwise specified.” Now folks, this is nothing more than a con game being played on the citizens of this state. This allows for the legislators to get away with not having to vote on whether they get a pay raise or not. They simply place people on the board who they know will give them a pay raise and that is it. It is money in their pockets.

Now we are not the only ones to take notice of this obscene pay raise they gave themselves. We found this editorial from the Tahlequah Daily Press. They have correctly pointed out that the raise is 35.6% pay raise. The article is well worth your time to read and we urge you to do so. We want to highlight portions of the article that really grabbed our attention. Quoting the article “Right now, the average lawmaker-that is, one not in a major leadership position- rakes in a base salary of $35,021, plus 63 days of expense money, a benefit allowance, and a generous retirement contribution. The package amounts to nearly $55,000 a year, on the taxpayer's back. Contrast that with the median household income in

Oklahoma, which often includes two wage-earners putting in a full year's work: $52,000 in 2018.” A pay raise for these part time employees in a year when the budget has failed is beyond stupidity.

The actual decision to raise their pay was made by the Legislative Compensation Board in October of 2019. We found this article from the Associated Press on the pay raise. It does mention that the citizens were not pleased with the legislature in 2017 and they did get an 8.8% cut in their pay. With a new Governor and a new legislative session, a new board was appointed. Now we do not know who all the board members are, but the Chairman of the Board is a Mr. Wes Wilbourn. He is in the broadcast media business. Then there was this article from the Lost Ogle. This too was from October of 2019. Now it is a little sarcastic, and is meant to be, but we urge you to read it. In it he highlights two individuals on the board, a land developer, and a journalist, who just do not seem to understand even the basics of Oklahoma Politics. We urge you to open the link and read the article for yourself. One of the sections of the article we will highlight says, “Wow. Can you believe it?

The local land developer who has a lot to gain by giving politicians a 35-percent pay raise voted to give politicians a 35-percent pay raise. That kind of makes me miss the good old days when businessmen and other power brokers had to use their own money to win political favor. Now they just have the taxpayers’ foot the bill!” Folks that is exactly what it looks like. We can predict fee increases and tax increases to dominate legislation next year.

Now the next time you talk to a legislator about this, they will tell you that there was nothing that they could do to stop it. These guys will try to sell you beach front property in the Rocky Mountains too.

They either unknowingly or unwittingly proved that it could have been stopped themselves. You see, there is also a Judicial Compensation Board. They had asked for a 4 percent pay raise. They are not going to get it. We found this article about the fuss that was being made over giving them a pay raise. In fact, the Judicial Compensation Review Board now must give their recommendations to the legislature for approval before a pay raise can be given. They did pass a law for that. The simple act of denying the judicial pay raise is proof that they could have stopped the horrendous pay raise they gave themselves.

It is time for this state to move out of the dark ages of unaccountable un-elected self-serving political appointed boards to decide on pay matters. It is time to move many subjects out of the hands of the incompetent, money grabbing twerps called legislators and put it back into the hands of the people. There should be legislation proposed that all legislative and judicial pay raises be subject to the approval of a vote of the people. There should be legislation that puts all rate and fee increases up to a vote of the people. The failure to stop this unearned pay raise is cause for the ouster of every sitting elected official at the state capital.