Think nothing gets done in Washington? Congress can unite... to vote itself another pay raise. Feel better now?
The House on Tuesday agreed to a $3,100 pay raise for Congress next year to $165,200 after defeating an effort to roll it back.Posted by Alan at June 30, 2005 06:22 AMIn a 263-152 vote, the House blocked a bid by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to force an up-or-down vote on the pay raise. Instead, lawmakers will automatically receive the raise officially a cost of living adjustment as provided for in a 1989 law that barred them from pocketing big speaking fees in exchange for an annual COLA.
Matheson was the only one of 434 House members to speak out against the 1.9 percent COLA, which will raise members' salaries in January.
A similar effort to block the raise could occur when the Senate considers its version of the bill. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has tried in the past to block it but has had no more success than Matheson did.
In a House riven by partisanship, raising members' pay is one of the few things Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., agree on.
The annual debate on the members' COLA resembles kabuki theater: Both Democratic and Republican leaders guarantee sizable majorities of their members to block the effort, and they make sure there is not a clear-cut vote on the measure. None of the party campaign committees uses the pay-raise issue in campaigns.