Give lawmakers a raise if ...

The Deseret Morning News editorial board has long supported pay raises for Utah legislators, under one condition. Ban all the gifts they receive from lobbyists.

Service in the Legislature is a major commitment that sacrifices time from families, careers and other responsibilities. The citizen Legislative Compensation Commission has recommended that lawmakers receive a modest $10-a-day raise, which would increase the pay to $130 a day. This seem a modest increase, perhaps even too modest.

If the Legislature includes the current $79 housing per diem as part of lawmakers' regular salary, as the compensation commission has recommended, lawmakers' salary would be $209 a day. Legislators receive the housing per diem whether they go home at night or opt to rent hotel rooms. This is difficult to rationalize considering lawmakers who live nearby can pocket the money while their out-of-town counterparts use it to pay for lodging. Lawmakers need to address that inequity while they're at it.

Otherwise, lawmakers should give themselves a healthy raise and ban lobbyist gifts. That seems a fair trade-off. If lawmakers are well-compensated, there would be no need for gifts such as meals, rounds of golf or tickets to sports and cultural events.

Although rules require lawmakers to report all gifts worth more than $50 a day, some lobbyists, in the past, have split checks or expenses to meet the reporting threshold yet entertain lawmakers in fine fashion. The law now requires such "splits" to be reported, but some lobbyists have gone so far to pay $49.99 of a lawmaker's expense — for a round of golf, for instance — to avoid the reporting threshold altogether. Such shenanigans have made a mockery of the reporting requirements. They also have damaged a degree of public confidence.

Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, in 2005 introduced a bill to require lobbyists to report gifts to legislators that are worth $10 or more. The bill died in a Senate committee but the compensation commission has encouraged lawmakers to adopt it in the upcoming general session. Bell told the Deseret Morning News that Senate leaders have shown some interest in supporting it this time.

Some lawmakers go to great lengths to avoid the appearance of impropriety. As a matter of personal credo, they accept nothing, which is admirable. But the process would be better served by an across-the-board gift ban and by giving lawmakers fair compensation for their legislative duties.

In the absence a gift ban, the reporting of gift-giving must be transparent and meaningful and reporting thresholds need to be as low as possible. These are not the best options, but they probably are more politically doable than an all-out ban.