By Ryan Spoon
Everyone is weighing in on the legislator pay issue, so I guess that I will also…
MY PRIMARY PREMISE: In my opinion, Idaho’s legislators are currently being either 1) overworked or 2) underpaid.
SOLUTION: Either work our legislators less or pay them more. Choose one of the following: either 1) scale back our Legislature to a statute-limited session every other year, or 2) pay for the more-than-part-time Legislature we currently have.
MY SECONDARY PREMISE: There is sufficient and sincere disagreement on this issue among genuine, well-meaning conservatives. We have a hard enough time getting progress on the issues where all conservatives agree without attacking one another when we disagree.
SOLUTION: When conservatives disagree, we should be gracious to one another, continue our discussions respectfully (and probably privately), and seek progress on other issues where we agree while we work out the areas where we disagree.
Arguments AGAINST the pay raise: Many people are pointing to the Idaho Legislature’s official status as a “part-time” Legislature as a reason to keep the pay at the current level ($19,913/yr + per diem in 2024). Several arguments have been made against raising legislator pay, but the primary reasons given so far are either 1) PUNITIVE or 2) PREVENTATIVE.
The PUNITIVE argument is that the Legislature’s recent performance, due to overspending, other bad legislation, and lack of good legislation, doesn’t “deserve” a pay raise. That’s not entirely wrong. Our state budget grew 54% from 2020-2024, we still don’t have legislation blocking future lockdown tyranny, Medicaid expansion hasn’t been repealed, we still don’t have real school choice like nearly every other Republican-led state, and there are a host of other complaints to boot. To those who argue that the Legislature should show us better performance before asking for better pay, I can’t entirely disagree.
The PREVENTATIVE argument is that, if we increase legislator pay, then that will be the first step towards a full-time Legislature, a move opposed by most Idahoans. Let’s assume that most Idahoans agree that we want to keep our “part-time” Legislature. To that, I say, we do not truly have a “part-time” Legislature! In other words, I would argue that Idahoans are currently underpaying for the amount of work time (not necessarily work quality) that we are receiving. Other states with “part-time” legislatures include Montana and Texas, which meet only every other year, with a 90-day session for Montana and a 140-day session for Texas. The pay for the Montana and Texas legislators is similar to Idaho legislator pay. By contrast, the Idaho Legislature meets every year, and those annual sessions can last up to 5 months, as there is no statutory limit on the length of the sessions. Add in leadership votes, caucus meetings, special sessions on occasion, and our legislators work at least 50% of the year, and that doesn’t even consider time spent campaigning.
The arguments FOR the pay raise are 1) FAIRNESS and 2) EQUALITY OF BRANCHES of government. The FAIRNESS argument is simply the converse of the preventative argument above. Starting with the acknowledgement that the Idaho Legislature is not truly “part-time,” whether we label it that or not, it’s easy to accept that the current pay falls short of the time investment that we currently expect from our legislators. As noted above, working about half of the year every year cannot reasonably be described as a “part-time” Legislature in comparison to other “part-time” Legislatures, and it’s certainly not worth $20K/year.
The argument regarding EQUALITY OF BRANCHES of government is one of the primary arguments that has been put forth by the pay raise advocates, which is that an underpaid, purportedly “part-time” Legislature is ill-equipped to contend with overreach and expansion from the executive branch. They point to the fact that all of our statewide officials in the executive branch (Governor, Lt. Gov., Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Controller, and Superintendent of Public Instruction) are full-time and reasonably compensated ($53K for Lt. Gov. and $129-151K for the other 6 officials). That’s not even covering the agency heads, such as Director of Insurance, Director of Veterans Affairs, etc. I’m not entirely convinced on this equality argument, as I’m not sure that legislating more will result in legislating better. Are they arguing that our Legislature to date has been abandoning conservative principles and bowing to the executive branch simply due to inadequate pay? Or is the argument that raising pay from $20K up to $25K will allow the legislators to hire paid staff to assist them? Any reasonable person can see that that small increase won’t cover paid staff. All in all, I can’t quite make sense of this argument.
In conclusion, the issue is NOT whether the Idaho legislators “deserve” a pay raise. The issue is that Idaho voters are trying to receive a Legislature that is far more than “part-time” while only paying for a truly “part-time” Legislature. Idahoans, we must CHOOSE: either 1) scale back our Legislature to a statute-limited session every other year, or 2) pay for the more-than-part-time Legislature we currently have.
About Ryan Spoon
Ryan Spoon graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1998 and served as an active-duty Army officer. He now works in fire protection engineering consulting. He is the former Chairman of the Idaho Freedom Political Action Committee (PAC) and the current First Vice Chairman of the Ada County Republican Party Central Committee (Ada County GOP).
