My latest op-ed, title above, appeared in The Virginian-Pilot Wednesday. (Newspaper version here.)
Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that this isn’t the first time I’ve suggested a change to both the pay of the legislature and the calendar. Nor will it be the last 😉 I recognize that there are downsides to a full-time legislature but after reading Monday’s editorial in the Pilot, I’m more convinced than ever that it is the right thing to do.
Unless you are independently wealthy, no one can serve in the legislature without having another source of income. So not only are conflicts of interest going to occur, a large segment of the population is going to be eliminated from serving simply because they cannot get off from work for two months every year. One of the many reasons that lobbyists have the upper hand is that they often know more about the legislation than the legislators do! That particular condition can be mitigated by having a broader section of our citizens bring that experience to Richmond.
I can tell you: if there were more CPAs in the General Assembly, I doubt we’d see the silliness of the annual rolling forward of the conformity date every year. As if tax season weren’t bad enough, we literally have to wait until the bill is passed in order to correctly prepare affected returns. And given that we had four major pieces of tax legislation in 2010, the rolling forward of the date was critical.
Having legislators paid a living wage, prohibiting outside employment and a lengthened General Assembly session are things I don’t expect to see in my lifetime. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be on the table.
UPDATE: As indicated in my linked article, full-time in this case does not mean the legislature should be in session all the time, although I do believe that the sessions need to be longer. Full-time refers to this being the legislator’s only job – and being adequately compensated for it. (And I didn’t write the headline.)
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Going full time would prevent the best and brightest, who take a sabbatical from work in many cases, from seeking office. I would oppose full time.
A significant portion of the best and the brightest are eliminated now, because they can’t take two months off from work.
I honestly don’t see why an employer would have a problem with this. If I were say SAIC, Dominion, GEICO, etc… I would love for my employees to be members of the assembly. What an effective way to increase the perspective of my company shared by the assembly. It seems like a win-win for the employer.
I know of at least one delegate who lost his job because he was elected.
Good post.
Would the issue of undue lobbyist influence be lessened if the legislators had sufficient budget to hire a full time legislative assistant who could research the pending legislation for the legislator?
If Virginia’s operating budget were considered corporate revenues, Virginia would be #55 on the Fortune 500. If the General Assembly is comparable to management, would you buy stock in a company whose management only worked 2 months a year? If the General Assembly is comparable to a board of directors, would you buy stock in a company with a 140 person board?
Most corporate boards work significantly less than 2 months a year. Then again, most corporate CEOs have pretty much dictatorial powers within the corporation.
Groveton – don’t the various committees already have varying amounts of staff to do research?
Randy – I think you mixed his metaphors. His reference to 2 months working was for management, not the corporate board.
Vivian:
I’ve heard of various research capabilities. But, it doesn’t seem to be working. Here’s a post from the blog of a NoVa state senator which seems to confirm the problem:
http://bit.ly/eu3Kjw
Randy:
The GA is too big to be a board and too part time to be management. So, it’s hard to tell what they are. CEOs seem to have a lot of power. Until the quarterly results start to go south. One good thing about publicly traded companies – they have to give their owners an audited score-card every 90 days.
Good point on the research. I had seen that post and it slipped my mind.
Actually only the annual results are audited. The quarterly ones are reviewed but not audited.
Legislators already have a budget for a full time LA or are you suggesting they be given money for a second one solely for research? I think that’s a great idea, although more delegates should use their current LA for that instead of admin work.
Really though, legislation at the state level is simple enough that high school students could understand most of it. While delegates can’t know everything, they should be smart enough for lobbyists to not have as much influence as Vivian mentions; or maybe my standards are just to high.
If the GA did go full time, I’d like to see more of it spent doing town halls around the state on things like the budget and other bills. There is no sense in keeping them in Richmond for the entire time. More town halls gives people a chance for more input and a change for any perspective or current candidates to get free face time in front of people who actually care about the issues.
Max – I disagree that legislation at the state level is that simple. Take the tax conformity bill, for example. There was a reason VA decoupled from an automatic adoption of federal law: it just cost the state too much money. Somebody has to have the expertise to understand tax law – and I don’t know of many college graduates that do, much less a high school student.
The lobbyists have the influence because they have the intimate knowledge. When a doctor in the legislature says something on a medical issue, he is listened to by the others simply because he has intimate knowledge. We need more folks who understand the intricacies of things, not less.
That’s true, but tax law is probably as complicated as it anything gets.
What I was getting at is that the laws are written in fairly plain language compared to what you see at the Federal level. With a few google searches and some thorough reading, you can get a good understanding of most every bill without a law degree.
No, the tax laws aren’t the only complexity. Note the confrontation over the HPV vaccine.
Yes, the laws are plain English – that’s not where the problem lies. The problem is in the unintended consequences of the law.
And that leads to the other problem: lack of time. Sure, research can help explain this stuff but who’s got time for that when you’re hearing 41 bills in 3 1/2 hours?
OK, so I’m guessing that reading the headline versus the linked op-ed is what’s happening, so I’m going to update my post for you guys to understand my definition of full-time.
This is a bad idea. Most people have a clock ticking in their head when the General Assembly convenes hoping the time passes fast because our lawmakers have too much time to create legislative mischief with some of their often stupid and rights limiting bills they put forth for consideration. Lawmakers would be given too much of chance to propose laws which will impact on minorities, state finance and education. A better idea is to limit their time in Richmond so they can work their day jobs and keep heads above waer financially and not be tempted by outside money.
Another one who didn’t read the article 😦
A man cannot serve two masters. Outside employment of legislators is what creates the conflicts of interest.
Vivian, I strongly disagree.
What this would create is a legislature full of professional politicians.
We already have several of those in the General Assembly and they are far from the best legislators.
I like the fact that in Virginia we have people from all walks of life — lawyers, small business people, doctors, retired folks, housewives, even CPAs ….who come to Richmond and look at the law from the perspective of an average citizen.
Obviously I disagree. We’ve tried it your way for all these years – and look at what it has gotten us: more lobbyists and fewer ordinary citizens. In fact, I’d argue that there are virtually no “average citizens” in the legislature.
And there is a single, retired CPA in the legislature.
Okay, so one out of 140, probably more than your representation in the population at large;-) And I seriously don’t know how you can look at the membership of the General Assembly and decide they aren’t “average citizens.” Even most of the lawyers are average, a lot of guys you’d hire to represent you on a traffic ticket, but not to defend you against a serious criminal charge or to litigate a case that involved big money, for their profession. And I don’t think a number of lawyers in the legislature is a bad thing since what the legislature does after all is write laws.
Not even one, because he’s retired.
I do think the over-representation of lawyers is a problem, mainly because of the way that they are taught to think in law school.
Besides, I understood Legislative Services was who wrote the laws, not the legislators.
I’ve actually had legislators tell me that even if the job paid a full time salary, they would not be willing to serve and give up their outside job. That tells me they are making plenty of money on the outside, which certainly doesn’t make them average.
Good column, Vivian.
Thanks.