A post on Extra Innings by Delegate Kris Admundson has J. Sarge musing about our citizen legislature. As I posted on Extra Innings, I believe that we are beyond the point of having part-time legislators. While I value the experiences that part-timers bring to the table, I believe the nature of the part-time service eliminates too many people from being able to serve.
Last time I checked, there were no practicing accountants in the legislature. Why? Because we are in the midst of tax season and serving is virtually impossible. But we aren’t the only ones who find it difficult, if not impossible, to serve. J.Sarge says exactly what I was thinking:
As a result, elected officials must either make very difficult job choices, be wealthy, be supported by their spouse, or be retired.
This applies equally to our part-time city council members. By not making the jobs full-time – with corresponding full-time salaries – we are eliminating from the pool of people who are willing to serve anyone outside of this criteria. Is this part of the reason why council seats and legislative seats are under-opposed or unopposed? Don’t we deserve the very best (no offense to our current elected officials intended)?
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Hey-
Great blog!
I will link to you right now, and try to do a post on you later this week.
Glad you like it 🙂 I’ve been enjoying yours as well.
Vivian —
The only question I would raise (after taking a look at, well, Congress) is whether making this a full-time job would improve the quality of representation. But the more we go into extra innings, the more likely we are to drive out members who have other active professional lives.
Thanks for the plug! Although I laid out some of the pros and cons, I must admit I haven’t come to a satisfactory conclusion myself. More to come . . .
Kris – I understand your question. My concern is – again, no offense intended – the quality of representation we have now. I don’t know how it is possible for you guys to read all the bills presented, much less understand them. So I’m concerned that the increasing complexity of things means someone else is actually giving their interpretation of what the bill means and the members of the legislature are relying on that.
We know at the local level part-time council is faced with this issue – and they have far fewer decisions to make than the legislature – and they rely heavily on staff.
My sense is that neither is perfect; however, we’ve given part-time legislators a try for some time now. Let’s give full-timers an opportunity to see if the system can work better.