Panel OKs Legislators’ Salary Hike : Assembly Committee Backs 10% Raise After ’86 Election

A controversial bill to raise legislative salaries by 10%, from $33,732 to $37,105 annually, after next year’s elections was barely approved Wednesday by the Assembly Ways and Means Committee.

A 12-6 vote, the exact majority required on the 23-member panel, sent the measure sponsored by Assemblyman Louis J. Papan (D-Millbrae) to the Assembly floor. It had earlier cleared the Assembly Rules Committee.

Ten Democrats and two Republicans voted yes on the proposed pay increase; all six no votes were cast by Republicans.

The GOP opposition irritated Papan, who said he felt that it was “absolutely deplorable” and the “highest degree of hypocrisy” that legislators would vote against the bill--and later accept the pay raise if it is enacted.

They Could Return Money

“Nothing in the bill prevents the return of the money or not accepting it,” fumed Papan.

In defense of his colleagues who voted against the measure, Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra), who cast one of the yes votes, said he found Papan’s remarks “indefensible.”

Papan claimed that legislative salaries would be at the $43,000 level if they had kept up with the inflation rate.

Alaskan state lawmakers presently are the top paid in the United States at $46,800 a year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, followed by New York, $43,000; Pennsylvania, $35,000; Michigan, $34,860, and California. U.S. congressmen and senators now receive $72,000 a year.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) has suggested that state lawmakers be paid $72,763 a year, the same as Superior Court judges, with a ban on outside income.

Raising Their Own Pay

Legislative salaries rose from $28,110 to $33,732 under a pay raise that went into effect last December. A 1966 ballot proposition approved by the voters gave the lawmakers the right to raise their own salaries, with a 5%-a-year limit.

The 12 yes votes on the bill were cast by Assemblymen John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), the committee chairman; Art Agnos (D-San Francisco); Bruce Bronzan (D-Fresno); Charles M. Calderon (D-Alhambra); Robert J. Campbell (D-Richmond); Lloyd Connelly (D-Sacramento); Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento); Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria); Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles); Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles); Bill Leonard (R-Redlands), and Johnson.

The six no votes were cast by Assemblymen William P. Baker (R-Danville); Charles Bader (R-Pomona); Dennis Brown (R-Signal Hill); Wally Herger (R-Rio Oso); John R. Lewis (R-Orange), and Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks).