The Albany Project, fast being filed in my “best.political.blogs.evahhh!” folder, has a great idea. Lawmakers shouldn’t be entitled to payraises, automatic, or even semi-automatic:

The New York state Legislature has the third highest pay in the nation - base pay of $79,500 for what is at best a part time job - and yet they are regarded by many as the most dysfunctional state legislature in the nation.

(snip)

This hasn’t stopped newly minted state Senate Minority Leader Smith from floating the idea of raising pay for legislators in the upcoming special session. To his credit, Smith has spoken of such a raise while at the same time speaking about passing badly needed reforms.

Reform first, we say.

Can I have a “hell, yeah!”?

We are asking that any pay increase be EARNED by passing three simple reforms, with hopefully more reforms to follow in the new year.

1. Following the lead of the Sunlight Foundation’s brilliant “Punchclock Campaign”, we insist that all New York state lawmakers publish their schedules online while the legislature is in session. They work for us, after all and we want to know what they are doing and who they are meeting with on our behalf.Want a raise? Punch the damn clock just like the rest of us.

2. Independent non partisan redistricting. New York’s redistricting process is a mess of insider baseball partisan protection of incumbents. It does not serve the public’s interest nor the democratic process. It has created a legislature that is unresponsive, unaccountable and undemocratic. It serves only to perpetuate the status quo.

This is non negotiable.

3. Every piece of member item spending must a separate line item in the budget WITH THE SPONSORING LEGISLATOR’S NAME ATTACHED. Once again, why the hell should we even have to bring this up?

This is a no brainer and is also non-negotiable.

No reform? No Raise! Period.

You like? You don’ like. If you like, they go on to suggest three simple things you can do in support of this.

1. Contact your Assy member and Senator. Ask them if they support the raise. If so, ask them if they think they should earn the raise by enacting the reforms. Let us know how it goes for you in the comments, and we’ll pass the info on to the Albany Project. They’re compiling a list of how each state leg member stands on it.

2. Write an LTE to the D&C and the Messenger Post saying that the state leg should earn their raise.

3. Sign the petition at the Citizens for a Better Gov’t in New York. They propose a few no-brainer reforms that stem from the “Brennan Center Report“.