Paying for our public officials

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

This letter appeared in the Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) on 2 February 2001.

This item may be cited as M. R. Franks, Letter to the Editor: Paying for our public officials, Baton Rouge Advocate, February 2, 2001, at 8B.

Dear Editor:

I'm afraid I have to disagree with The Advocate on the issue of pay increases for elected state officials. The only way to attract quality people to work for you is to pay them what they're worth. It was Plato who observed that people go into politics for one of three reasons: wealth, power or prestige.

The prestige seeker invariably is independently wealthy and mainly wants the title "senator" or "governor." Little sympathy for the common man here -- less understanding of the issues.

The power seeker is a megalomaniac. Dangerous. Hitler is the epitome of this type.

Persons going into politics for money are often the best of the lot. Unfortunately, there isn't much money to be made legally in politics. Yet it's the Huey Longs, the Edwin Edwardses, the Richard J. Daleys that really made things work. Too bad they couldn't have been paid their worth legally.

I grew up in Chicago under Daley (the elder). Two feet of snow could fall during the night, and by sunrise the streets were plowed clear. The garbage was collected on time. Potholes got filled. The average response time to a police 911 call was ninety seconds. That's from the time of the call until the time the squad car actually pulled into the driveway.

Daley truly was a master administrator. He could have made millions in private enterprise. He got his full worth, all right. Too bad he had to take it from under the table.

Who in his right mind would want to be a governor or a Cabinet nominee or a mayor of a major city today? The governor runs an operation employing tens of thousands of persons and having an annual budget in the billions. From a management standpoint, this is fully the equivalent of running General Motors or Bell Telephone. That requires ability.

Someone with that ability can earn better than $1 million a year in private industry, and at the same time avoid public scrutiny. Or someone with that ability can be a sitting duck for investigations and indictments and Marion Berry-type sting operations, and get paid only a five-digit salary. Only a fool would choose the latter.

And that, dear readers, is why we have so many fools in office.

At times it seems the only capable administrators willing to take elected jobs are the crooks. The honest people willing to take the job are either independently wealthy and out of touch with reality, or they are megalomaniacs, or they are administrative incompetents.

Only problem is, an incompetent administrator costs the taxpayers hundreds of millions a year on unwise expenditures, while costly, pressing problems are left unsolved.

But at least we can pat ourselves on the back and praise ourselves for saving a hundred thousand or so on his salary.

Maybe we should pass a law making 10 cents over minimum wage the only legal wage to pay elected state officials. Think of all we can save. Then we can recruit an entire Legislature from those laid off in the fast food industry.

We get what we pay for.

M. R. Franks, associate professor of law
Southern University Law Center
2 Swan St.
Baton Rouge

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