Rural lawmakers may get pay raise

By Charles Ashby
Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The Colorado House approved a 22 percent raise in per diem pay for rural lawmakers last week, including the increase in a routine bill that normally gets little attention.

The increase is one of several annual spending bills, this one for the legislative branch.

The increase was inside House Bill 1301, introduced by House Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch. The bill, approved without discussion or debate, concerns the payment of expenses for the legislative department. It passed the House 34–28.

It includes a $189,420 increase in the per diem lawmakers receive to pay personal expenses while in session. It increases that per diem from $150 a day to $183 a day, but only for lawmakers who live outside a 50-mile radius of the Capitol Building.

Legislators in the Denver metropolitan area get $45 a day, but rural lawmakers get more because they are farther from home and have to pay for a second home while in Denver, said Senate Majority Leader John Morse, D-Colorado Springs.

The increase initially was to go into effect in 2008, but it’s been delayed in a separate bill each year since then because of the recession.

To date, no lawmaker has introduced a measure to delay it again.

Morse, the Senate sponsor of the bill, said the increase is needed because the current per diem doesn’t cover the cost of staying in Denver during a legislative session.

Morse said because the increase is in existing law, he can’t strip it out of the bill when it comes before the Senate because state statutes bar legislators from putting substantive law in an appropriations bill.

Even if he could, though, Morse said he wouldn’t.

“You end up having to pay an awful lot out of your own pocket, and that means that you need to be wealthy in order to run for public office,” he said. “The state ought to pay people’s expenses. I’ve had to dig into my savings each year I’ve been up here.”

He said all state legislators make $30,000 a year.

The bill was supported by 22 House Republicans and 12 Democrats, including Reps. Ray Scott, R-Grand Junction, Don Coram, R-Montrose, and Roger Wilson, D-Glenwood Springs.

The only local House legislator who opposed it was Rep. Randy Baumgardner, R-Cowdrey, whose district includes parts of Garfield County. Rep. Laura Bradford, R-Collbran, was not in Denver last week, so she didn’t vote on the measure.