Tuesday April 15, 2008
With the arrival of the 2008 Legislative Guides, listing various committees, rules and lists of lawmakers, it became very obvious to Blog-o-rama that the House Democratic caucus has never been more bloated with leadership titles.
In fact, there are more House Democrats with lofty titles such as assistant majority leader or whip (there are 30 of those), than there are members of the Republican-minority caucus.
This probably wouldn’t matter, except they’re making at least $4.500 a year above the rank-and-file base salary of $28,000. The eleven deputy speakers and deputy majority leaders make another couple grand a year more than the assistants.
To be fair – and Blog-o-rama hates being fair – equivalent minority leaders get the same pay, which your state taxes, due tonight at midnight, underwrite.
The Blogster wouldn’t have noticed this, except the House Democrats’ title run into a second page of the Legislative Guide.
So let’s see how far this incestuous patronage – and that’s what it is – since the 1995 session.
That version of the guide, found in the archive here in the Capitol Press Room, had 13 Senate majority Republicans in leadership positions while Democrats had 11 such titles.
Over on the House side of 1995, there were 21, including exactly one majority whip, the late Richard Tulisano.
There were 15 high falutin titles on the House GOP side.Today, there are a dozen House majority whips, deputy whips and assistant whips.
Over on the House GOP side, there are 21 leadership titles. In the lofty Senate, today Democrats have 23 titles, which coincides exactly with the number of senators in their caucus. So NO ONE is making the rank-and-file minimum.
On the Senate GOP side, there are 12 higher-paid titles.
But the startling thing is there are more House Democrats with titles, 45, than the entire House GOP caucus, the “Fightin’ 44.” Call it legislative-salary inflation. Shouldn’t their hat sizes have increased along with their self esteem, over the last 13 years?
Shouldn’t we have at least gotten better government for our money?
Oh yeah, let’s check back to the 1995 budget. It was $9 billion, exactly half the current budget.
