Legislative pay-raise proposals coming next session
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Multiple attempts to increase state lawmakers' meager salaries are on the agenda for the legislative session beginning next month.
Why it matters: The $24,000 annual salary makes it difficult for many people to serve in the Legislature and likely dissuades them from running.
Context: Arizona technically has a part-time Legislature, but depending on how long it takes to conclude the year's business it can be in session for six months or longer, in addition to off-session responsibilities, making it difficult for some to work their regular jobs.
- Rep. Seth Blattman (D-Mesa) announced this month that he won't seek re-election due to the low pay, and his former seatmate, Sen. Eva Burch (D-Mesa), cited salary among the reasons for her resignation last year.
The big picture: Voters have rarely been supportive of increasing pay for lawmakers, rejecting 16 of the last 19 attempts going back to 1968.
- Voters haven't approved a pay raise since 1998, when they set the current salary.
- Since then, voters have rejected six proposed pay raises, and the commission that's historically responsible for putting them on the ballot hasn't done so since 2014.
The intrigue: $24,000 today has the same purchasing power as about $12,000 in 1998.
State of play: At least three plans to put pay raises on next November's ballot have either been introduced or are in the works.
- Proponents hope to incentivize voter support by packaging higher pay with other reforms or tying pay to inflation.
Rep. Stacey Travers (D-Phoenix) reintroduced her proposal to raise salaries to $35,000 and adjust for inflation every two years.
- In exchange, the proposal would impose lifetime limits of four terms in each chamber.
- Lawmakers are currently limited to four consecutive terms per chamber, but they often switch back and forth between the House and Senate.
- Travers told Axios she's trying to send a message but knows "it won't even get a hearing."
Sen. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) is reviving a previous proposal that would index legislator salaries to inflation.
- That would boost the $24,000 to nearly $48,000, with future increases annually.
- The idea easily passed the Senate last year but didn't get a vote in the full House.
- Kavanagh opposes term limits, telling Axios it should be up to voters to decide who they want representing them, and touting the experience that comes with long tenures.
And the state's biggest firefighters union is working with other interest groups and two GOP lawmakers on a proposal it hopes lawmakers will send to the ballot.
- Tom Caretto, executive vice president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona, told Axios the bipartisan stakeholder group is looking at various reforms to package with a pay raise, including term limits and changes to lobbying and reporting at the Capitol.
- "Really kind of all things are on the table right now," Caretto said.
What they're saying: "I can say definitively that this has bipartisan support as an idea. I think we all know that ideas and policy are two different things. And getting there's all the fun," Caretto said.