Steve Terrell has a good article here. Apparently, Senator Dede Feldman also attended that school we talked about yesterday:
Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, said she thinks gifts from lobbyists should be banned.
Trips, such as the LES Netherlands jaunts “don’t look good,” Feldman said.
However, she said, sometimes “think tanks” pay for lawmakers to go to out-of-state conferences concerning various issues such as health care. Feldman has accepted such trips, she said, which proved to be worthwhile.
And then there is this gem from the twenty year legislative veteran, Sen. Cisco McSorley (D) Senate Republican Whip Lee Rawson:
“It’s getting difficult to recruit people who could do an exceptional job, but can’t afford to run,” Rawson said in an interview this week.
“We no longer have a Legislature that is representative of our population at large,” he said.
Therefore, he said, the state should consider another path — providing an actual salary for lawmakers.
Um, Senator Rawson, I’ve got a better idea, and it won’t cost the population at large a boatload of extra tax money. Why don’t you just encourage those folks who get elected to the legislature and never leave to finally move on. You know, people who have been there for more than say eight years. Leadership by example is a beautiful thing.
Update: Thanks to Steve Terrell for pointing out my mistake above. I guess my mind just wouldn’t let me process that a Republican, the Senate Minority Whip no less, would be proposing that we move away from a volunteer citizen legisalture to a paid legislature.