County’s Congressmen Assail Big Pay Raise, but 3 of 4 Will Take It

Anticipating public wrath over an always-sensitive political issue, San Diego County’s congressmen say they regard a proposed 50% pay increase for Congress as exorbitant, ill-timed and, as one put it, “a symbolic embarrassment.”

Nevertheless, with one exception, they plan to readily accept the pay rise, which will increase their annual salaries from $89,500 to $135,000.

“I think a raise is deserved, although I think the percentage is a little high, coming all at once,” Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) said. “But I’m sure we’re going to get hammered on it. You can’t win on a 1% raise or a 100% raise or anything in between. In politics, any raise is a no-win proposition.”

In this case, however, the political damage may be minimized by the back-door method expected to be employed by the Congress to allow the pay raise to take effect without a vote in the House.

Under the confusing--and, critics say, politically devious--process established to set congressional salaries, the raise, recommended by former President Reagan, will take effect automatically Feb. 8 unless both houses of Congress reject it before then. Reagan’s recommendation, based on a report by an independent commission, also will increase the salaries of federal judges and top executive branch officers by 50%.

Convoluted Process

Although the Senate is expected to turn down the proposed pay increase, House leaders have indicated that they do not plan to schedule a vote on the subject before next month’s deadline, thereby allowing the raise to take effect.

Siding with opponents who charge that the convoluted process allows one house to grandstand by voting against a raise, knowing that the other chamber will not follow suit, San Diego’s four congressmen are perhaps more critical of that process than they are of the raise itself.

“The process is absolutely lousy,” Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego) said. “No one in America sets his own salary, and for Congress to be involved in the process at all is intolerable. We should be out of the loop entirely.”

All four congressmen called the proposed $45,500-a-year increase excessive, with their comments ranging from Lowery’s description of it as “a bit rich” to Rep. Ron Packard’s “clearly exorbitant” characterization.

Only Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado), however, plans to directly back up his words with action.

Declaring bluntly, “I ain’t taking it!” Hunter said that he will support any effort to block or rescind the raise, adding that, if it takes effect because of congressional inaction, he will donate the full raise to charity for at least one year. One of the chief beneficiaries would be a scholarship fund for Latinos established by Hunter.

“In a year when we’re going to be asking millions of Americans to sacrifice to an unprecedented degree because of the budget deficit, I don’t see how we can go along with a 50% raise in our own salary,” Hunter said. “I’m not saying a raise maybe isn’t deserved. I’m saying it’s definitely the wrong time.”

Packard, however, argued that voluntarily relinquishing the raise “punishes the wrong people.” Although a handful of congressmen, for symbolic and other reasons, traditionally turn back part of their pay raises to the Treasury or turn over the money to charities, others posture against the salary increase but then quietly pocket it with relative impunity, the Carlsbad Republican noted.

‘No Useful Purpose’

“To me, returning it serves no useful purpose,” Packard said. “I think there are better ways to get across that message.” Noting that he annually donates “a significant percentage” of his salary to charity, Packard said he will continue to do so if the raise is approved.

Similarly, Lowery said that, his opposition to the raise notwithstanding, he also does not plan to follow Hunter’s lead on the issue.

Meanwhile, Bates, describing the pay-raise issue as “an easy issue to demagogue on or make political points,” said he believes that any congressman who accepts the raise “should be willing to vote for it when it counts.” Two years ago, in a purely symbolic gesture with unmistakable political overtones but with no legal impact, the House voted against a $12,100 pay raise the day after it took effect.

Despite his reservations about the size of the raise, Bates, reiterating an oft-heard argument, said he believes that the pay raise can be justified on several grounds. Throughout much of the past two decades, he noted, Congress did not receive a pay raise in many years when other federal employees received at least a small percentage increase. In addition, Bates and his colleagues agreed, the raise will help attract top-caliber people to federal jobs.

For those reasons, if the pay raise measure comes up for a meaningful vote this year, Bates said, he probably will support it.

“If it were my choice, I would have gone for a smaller amount and phased it in,” Bates said. “But this is what’s before us. I’m not going to be one of these guys who criticizes it but then takes it.”

Hoping to mute criticism of the pay raise, congressional leaders plan to couple it with a ban on members’ acceptance of honorariums for speeches before special-interest groups. Under current law, House members can personally keep $26,850 in such fees annually and senators $35,800.

“Even though I don’t think honorariums are the corrupting scourge that the media makes them out to be, if the raise takes effect, they should go,” Lowery said.

Both Lowery and Bates estimated that they received $20,000 in honorariums last year, about $5,000 more than Hunter. In contrast, Packard said he has received only about $5,000 in honorariums during his entire six-year congressional career.

“It would be political suicide to take the raise and the honorariums,” Packard said. “The leadership might play games on voting on the raise. But they won’t on the honorariums.”