House Votes to Hike Member Pay to $120K

WASHINGTON--House members voted yesterday to raise their pay by more than $30,000 a year over the next 13 months--to more than $120,000 a year--while revising ethics rules to put new limits on outside earnings.

The new proposal sped through the House with strong support from the leaders of both parties and an endorsement from President Bush, passing by a vote of 252 to 174. A slight majority of Republicans voting opposed the bill despite Bush's stance.

The bill would increase salaries in the House, for federal judges, and for top executive branch officials by at least 35 percent and often by closer to 40 percent.

Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-Maine) said the Senate would consider the bill today. However, it was not clear what raises or honoraria limits the Senate might include for itself.

The House bill provides for a 7.9 percent cost-of-living hike by January. On Jan. 1, 1991, a 25 percent raise would be given--on top of whatever cost-of-living increase is given to rank-and-file civil servants at that time.

Assuming a 3 percent 1991 civil service raise, House members who now make $89,500 likely would see their pay increase to about $125,000.

However, lawmakers who currently add to their incomes with honoraria for speeches would have to give that up. Current rules allow House members to pocket honoraria totaling up to 30 percent of their salaries, while senators can keep 40 percent.

"I can understand and sympathize with people in my district who make 15 and 20 and $30,000 a year who would have trouble understanding why this kind of pay level is needed," said House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.).

"But," he told his colleagues, "in your heart and in your mind you know it's the right thing to do."

Rep. James A. Traficant (D-Ohio) took a different view. "I understand the game--we come with ethics reform and we sneak in a pay raise," he said.

The complex 100-page pay and ethics package was announced by Democratic and Republican leaders Wednesday, but copies were not made available to the public until debate was well under way yesterday.

The ethics-reform legislation would bar House members from accepting fees for speeches, but they could suggest their hosts pass on up to $2,000 in the member's name to a charity of the member's choice. The bill requires members to reveal the donor but not the destination of the money.

Income earned outside the House would be limited to 15 percent of salary beginning in 1991. Members could not receive directors' fees, legal fees or other income for professional services. Book royalties would remain exempt from the limits but with new restrictions.

The bill also would tighten rules on accepting gifts and on travel that members may accept.

Public criticism, some of it galvanized by broadcast talk-show hosts, helped lead to defeat of a proposed 51 percent congressional pay raise earlier this year. But there was no time this time.

"Without public hearings, without a decent interval of time for the American people to digest it... the House leadership railroaded it through," complained consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who opposes congressional pay increases.

But Ann McBride, senior vice president of Common Cause, the self-proclaimed public interest organization, hailed the action as "moving toward a time when we will have government fully compensated by the public, and not by special interest influence money."

The Senate could give itself a smaller raise, as it did earlier this decade. Senators were paid less than House members for about six months seven years ago before senators approved a catch-up raise.

Bush, who has been seeking for months to increase salaries for his top aides and for federal judges, cleared the way for House action this week. By giving his blessing to the package, he made it more difficult for Democrats or Republicans to use pay as a partisan issue.