New York lawmakers are apparently poised to raise their own salaries, possibly by more than 20 percent. If they do, the question is what we - the taxpayers - will get in return.
There is no way that any reasonable person can argue that this Legislature has actually earned a pay raise. So for months now, Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been trying to get the legislators to pass modest campaign finance reform in exchange for more pay.
Senate Republicans, now in full battle with the governor, have so far resisted the deal. But stiffening the campaign finance reform rules is the very least the Legislature should do before Mr. Spitzer agrees to the creation of a commission that would raise legislators' pay automatically in the future.
The governor should, in fact, insist on more. It is hard to imagine that he has the political clout to get it, but in addition to campaign finance reform he should insist that the legislators be more transparent about the work they do on the side.
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Nominally public servants, Albany's lawmakers are more secretive than all but the most private corporations about their own affairs. Even when a legislator appears to step over the line - ethically, morally or even legally - the matter goes to the Legislative Ethics Commission to investigate. But that, as Russ Haven of New York Public Interest Research Group says, is "like being sucked into a black hole." The commission's real job seems to be making all its investigations magically disappear.
If Mr. Bruno will not reveal what he does in his private dealings, and if lawyers like Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, insist on keeping mum about outside legal work, aren't they thumbing their noses at the public? And if they and other legislators continue to hide their private work and their conflicts of interest, hasn't the time come to start thinking revolutionary thoughts, like having full-time legislators?
True, we would have to pay them more than the $79,500 they make now. But it would be worth it if they really, absolutely, finally joined judges and top state officeholders and rank-and-file state employees whose full-time job as public servants is to serve the public's interest.
