PUERTO RICO’S PERPETUAL “SCANDAL”


Puerto Ricans have a low opinion of the Legislature and with the sensational news stories published recently on the salaries and other benefits legislators give themselves, it can only getter lower.

The basic salary of the 53 representatives and 28 senators is $73,775. The vice presidents, floor leaders and chairman of the treasury and government committees get $84,841. The House Speaker and Senate President get $110,663.

Legislators also get a per diem for attending the sessions and committee hearings of $150 a day, or $162 if they live outside the metropolitan area. This, needless to say, adds up. One representative received $163,644 in per diem from the beginning of this term in 2005 up to April of this year. There are 25 others that received over $130,000. On the Senate side one Senator received $175,285. All but three of the 28 received over $100,000.

There is more. Legislators have a choice: either a car plus gas, or a monthly transportation stipend of $1,300 a month, or $1,400 if they live more than 50 kilometers from the Capitol building. This too adds up. Sixteen Senators that chose the stipend have received over $50,000 during this term, 13 of them $58,400.

If you add the three – salary, per diem, and stipend, one Senator has received in this term $516,488. One representative $414,307. If you add up, say, all the per diem payments to all the legislators in this term, you get $10 million.

Now, these are public statistics available to anyone that wants them and it’s hardly surprising that the Puerto Rico Legislature is extraordinarily generous with itself. Decades ago, then Puerto Rico Controller Ieana Carlo Colon issued a stinging report pointing out that the legislators gave themselves economic benefits far beyond any Legislature in the 50 states: some benefits beyond what members of the U.S. Congress get.

In view of the fact that Puerto Rico is twice as poor as the poorest state, this is “scandalous.” But the Legislature was unmoved. In 1998, in fact, it legislated for itself, and then Governor Pedro Rosselló approved, automatic cost of living salary and per diem increases that would go into effect with each new term.

This past week it seemed that the legislators worried. While Puerto Ricans are suffering badly from the economic crisis, it would certainly not look good that the Legislature would increase the basic salary to $90,743, the salary of House and Senate presidents up to $136,115, and also increase the per diem. As one legislator put, it would not look good that a committee chairman would make more than the Chief Justice of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. So the Legislature decided to “freeze” – not eliminate – the automatic 2009 salary and per diem increases.

Now, there is a reason why, I think, the “scandal” of the Legislature has lasted so long. And it is precisely because Puerto Ricans have such a low opinion of the Legislature. And this is because they have such a low opinion of political parties and of politics itself. They see the Legislature as nothing more than a poisonous partisan snake pit.

This, in fact, is not entirely true. There are men and women in the Legislature that work hard trying to come up with legislation on some very hard social and economic ills on this island. They have a right to feel strongly that they earn every penny.
#But there is no question today as in the past that it is vital for this island to raise the quality of the Legislature. And the question is: how?