Congressional Democrats bungle pay raise

Score one for the Republicans in the Nancy Pelosi Era of Congress.

All the political grandstanding by Democratic candidates about Congressional pay last fall appears to have backfired on them.

Remember the pandering to voters by Democrats who insisted they wouldn't take a pay increase until the minimum wage was raised? As if giving American workers chump change is the same as a hefty pay raise for our under-worked and overpaid members of Congress.

House Republicans, still smarting from losing the majority in House to the Donkey-crats, managed to outwit their rivals by blocking the scheduled 1.7 percent pay hike Congress gave itself for 2007 as a cost-of-living-adjustment.

Congressional pay will be frozen at $165,200.

The Republicans and Democrats had a handshake deal since 1989 whereby they would not make Congressional pay a campaign issue. They also figured out a way to avoid voting to give themselves a raise each year by triggering automatic COLAs for members of Congress unless they vote not to accept the increases. That hasn't happened yet.

The Democrats had to ruin it for everyone by making Congressional pay a big part of their attack ads on Republicans leading up to the November 2006 elections. The ads linked Congressional pay raises with alleged Republican inaction on the minimum wage. You remember the attack ads: "Rep. Joe Blow voted against raising the minimum wage, but voted himself a pay raise for four consecutive years."

Adding insult to injury for Democrats is the fact that the pay raise vote was already taken for 2007 before Democrats starting attacking Republicans in the fall.

The pay raise automatically kicked in when Congress voted 263-152 last June to reject a move by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to force an up-or-down vote on the pay raise. That allowed the automatic COLA for 2007.

The rich members of Congress -- Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, etc. -- don't care about the $2,800 pay raise, but a lot of those new Democratic members could have used the extra pocket money. They'll have to wait until 2008 to pad their own salary.

By the way, the minimum wage increase that Democrats promised still hasn't cleared the Senate.

The one-year freeze on Congressional pay is a good time to take a serious look at how we pay our elected representatives and other officials. There's no secret that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is lobbying for higher pay for judges.

We have to figure out a better way of compensating elected and appointed officials. The current system, where they give themselves pay raises, is wrong.