Should Minnesota lawmakers set their own salaries?

Referendum will let voters decide who makes those decisions

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota voters will be asked this fall whether state lawmakers should be setting their own salaries, or whether those decisions should be made by an independent citizens commission. 

DFL Sen. Kent Eken is one legislator who believes lawmakers should not be voting on their own compensation. 

“Legislators do not want to be voting on our pay. It feels wrong,” Minnesota state Sen. Kent Eken, one of the amendment’s chief supporters, told MPR. “If you look at the constitutional amendment, it makes no comments whatsoever on what the pay should be. It’s all about who should set it. And we are not the objective ones, so we should not be the ones setting it.”

The constitutional amendment voters will consider establishes a citizens board to set the lawmakers salary. 

Minnesota Public Radio reports there hasn’t been a change to their base salary of about $31,000 since 1999. 

A survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures ranks Minnesota 19th in base pay for legislators among the 39 states that provide an annual salary. 

The governor and Supreme Court chief justice would pick the members of the citizens council. 

Other states have similar setups, MPR reported. A notable example is California, which established its Citizen Compensation Commission following a 1990 referendum. In its first three years, the panel left lawmaker pay unchanged.

More often than not since, there have been compensation increases. But there have been pay cuts when the state was in fiscal straits. Legislators there earn $100,000 a year, tops in the nation.