Less than one week after its initial passage through a morning roll call vote, a bill that would have significantly increased pay for state legislators was killed on the Motion to Reconsider calendar.
Senator Chris McDaniel, who was one of the four nays when the original bill was brought to the floor, considered the killing of the bill “a victory of sorts.”
“Politicians do not deserve pay raises,” McDaniel, R-Ellisville, said in a video he uploaded to Facebook. “When we run for office, we know exactly how much money we’re going to be making. We assume that responsibility.”
SB 2794 would have bumped salaries of lawmakers in both chambers up $6,000 in the first year of a four-year term and $4,500 a year for the other three years of the term.
Mississippi is one of 14 states with part-time legislatures, which means lawmakers devote 57 percent of a full-time job to their legislative duties. Out of those 14 states, the average salary is $18,449 with Mississippi currently standing at $23,500.
On top of the base salary, legislators receive $151 per diem each day of the session. Most members also have jobs outside of their legislative duties.
