Tuesday, Apr. 15, 2008

Sweeter legislative pensions are down, but not yet out

YOU COULD have gotten vertigo trying to keep up with last week’s legislative pension gyrations.

When the twisting and turning was done, the conspiracy of silence had been broken, opposition was growing in the Senate, and the House had reversed its earlier unrecorded votes and taken a step toward killing the plan to add a guaranteed 2 percent annual cost-of-living adjustment to the legislative pension system. That, if you’re just tuning in, is the system that taxpayers subsidize at three times the rate at which we subsidize the pensions for full-time state employees, that lets our part-time legislators draw larger state paychecks after they retire than while they’re in office, and that even lets them keep growing their pensions at taxpayer expense after voters kick them out of office.

How last week’s actions came to happen is a story of the difference voters can make if they make their voices heard — and good reason to keep up the pressure on a fight that is not yet over.

But it’s also a story of how difficult it is to keep up with individual legislators’ votes, how unwilling most legislators are to change that and what a difference that can make in how those votes turn out: Of the six votes the House cast on the legislation last week, only three were recorded — and the three unrecorded votes all favored the pension increase. Or at least that’s how they were called.

The e-mails and phone lines were burning up after I wrote about the attempt to sneak the legislative COLA into law along with cost-of-living adjustments for rank-and-file state employees. I know, because more than a few people called or copied their notes to me. Although one senator told a constituent, in unprintable terms, that he should get himself elected if he wanted such a sweet pension, most legislators were either 1) feigning ignorance or 2) looking for cover.

Still, the week began with supporters trying to slide this legislation through before most legislators were paying attention. It nearly worked. The House passed the bill (H.4673) on a voice vote, without anyone attempting to kill the legislative COLA.

Apparently everyone who opposed the increase was waiting for Rep. Herb Kirsh, who has led the fight to block these increases in the past. He had drawn up an amendment to remove the legislative COLA from the bill. But the bill came up while he was in the lobby answering questions about a complicated tax bill he sponsored. (“I’m never leaving the chamber while we’re in session again; it doesn’t matter how many notes I get,” he told me later.)

What happened next is a bit convoluted, so bear with me, because it’s instructive. Mr. Kirsh moved to reconsider the bill’s passage, so he could offer his amendment. Ways and Means Chairman Dan Cooper moved to table that motion. The House refused, by a 72-25 vote. I wasn’t there, but several people have told me that on the next vote — whether actually to take the bill back up — it sounded like a solid majority voted “yes.” And you’d expect that, since 72 people had just voted not to table the motion. But Speaker Bobby Harrell declared that the “no’s” had it. Debate over.

I’m not ready to condemn Mr. Harrell — or at least not him alone. Several people screamed “no” at the top of their lungs, which can make it difficult to tell what’s going on. More to the point: Those 72 people who had just suggested they wanted to debate the bill could have asked for a recorded vote. They did not.

But apparently they learned their lesson. The next day, when the bill came up for what is usually a routine third and final reading, Rep. Mick Mulvaney moved to send it back to committee. That was the only option at that point for removing the legislative COLA. This time there were two votes — one to table Mr. Mulvaney’s motion, the next to approve it. This time, both were recorded — which means both votes went against the pension increase. The final vote — the best indicator of how legislators actually feel — was 58-51. It’s posted at thestate.com/bradsblog/.

The idea was that the Ways and Means Committee would remove the legislative COLA and send the bill back to the floor for debate. But that’s not a sure thing. After all, 51 representatives were willing to go on the record essentially in support of their COLA.

Although the drama was in the House, the debate is developing in the Senate as well. The Senate Finance Committee had approved a similar bill (S.1124) the previous week, apparently with several senators being led to believe it did not include the legislative COLA. But Sens. Greg Ryberg and Kevin Bryant were waiting for it on the Senate floor, with an amendment to strip out the legislative COLA. That bill didn’t come up for debate last week, but Mr. Ryberg told me that early supporters appear to be turning against the legislative perk.

One final note: Thirty-one current legislators have decided it’s to their advantage to turn down their $10,400 legislative salary and instead draw their pension. (They still get to collect their $1,000-a-month in-district expense, even though that is counted as salary for the purpose of calculating pensions.) It might be possible to deduce their identities, but the list is not a public record. Only two of them have made themselves known — Mr. Kirsh, and Rep. Bill Cotty, who put a statement in the House Journal saying he didn’t vote on the matter because it would be a conflict of interest. I’m not sure it is, although it’s certainly a debatable point. But of course, no one is debating it.

Ms. Scoppe can be reached at cscoppe@thestate.com or at (803) 771-8571.