Lawmakers, now’s not the time to pad pay

It would be difficult to find anyone not glad to move on from 2020.

Likewise, it would be difficult to find a group more enthused to see 2021 arrive than our state legislators.

Coming off a year that saw a coronavirus pandemic infect nearly 390,000 Massachusetts residents and cause more than 12,500 deaths, shutter countless businesses, gut the state’s hospitality industry, spike unemployment rates over 14%, and set the stage for a mass eviction crisis, our state’s 200 senators and representatives are set to receive a $4,280 bump in their base salaries — the third pay boost in as many legislative sessions.

While some state taxpayers should soon receive about a $600 federal stimulus check, that’s chump change compared to the largesse legislators bestowed on themselves.

It must be comforting to the hard-working residents of this state — and those who lost jobs through no fault of their own — that their meager federal check will help pay for their senators’ and reps’ revolting raises.

The scheduled 6.46% increase will boost lawmakers’ base pay to $70,536.

That bump also will spike the salaries of newly minted House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka to about $178,000.

Lawmakers will also receive a separate 4.89% hike to their office expense accounts, while those in leadership positions will get an additional boost to their already lucrative stipends.

“We’re in the middle of record-high unemployment, people can’t pay their rent, people don’t have enough to maintain their businesses and their businesses are closing — to me, it’s bad timing,” Greg Sullivan, research director of the Pioneer Institute, told the Boston Herald.

These raises come courtesy of controversial pay-hike legislation enacted four years ago that tied biennial adjustments for lawmakers, judges and constitutional officers to inflation.

Those individual and leadership raises four years ago proved to be a windfall for some area legislators, with several seeing their combined pay soar from 30 to more than 40%, including Lowell state Reps. Dave Nangle, Tom Golden, Acton Sen. Jamie Eldridge, Lexington Sen. Michael Barrett, and Leominster Sen. Jennifer Flanagan.

Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, as they did four years ago, will decline the raises, according to a spokesperson.

Baker vetoed the bill back in 2017, but both the House and Senate easily overrode his objection.

All 41 Republican legislators at the time also voted against giving themselves a pay raise.

But the will of the Democrat-dominated Legislature prevailed.

Back then, in the span of just two days, House Speaker Robert Deleo and Senate President Stanley Rosenberg mustered veto-proof majorities in both branches for an $18 million suite of pay raises that included $45,000 increases for the Legislature’s top two Democrats.

In addition to $2.8 million in salary and office expense increases for itself, the Legislature voted for $25,000 raises for judges and hikes in the pay for all six constitutional officers, including the governor.

Contrast that to the nearly do-nothing Legislature that held court throughout 2020, even though it voted to stay in formal session the entire year to supposedly meet the demands of this coronavirus crisis.

This infusion of cash must be the lawmakers’ reward for sitting on several key pieces of legislation — letting them languish in conference committees throughout the summer and election season — thus removing the burden of taking potentially controversial positions while seeking re-election.

In 2017, lawmakers framed these raises as catch-up pay for years of level-funded compensation, which apparently proved to those on Beacon Hill that the only raise they’d ever receive is the one they gave themselves.

But even the most insular, selfish, self-centered among them must realize now’s not the time to pad their pay.

Democrat leadership, in recognition of the financial suffering of your caucus’ constituents, table these raises until the state’s economy can afford them.