Equal Pay Claims for Senators

Few new wage and hour theories are truly novel, but one California legislator has come up with one. The California Citizens Compensation Commission is scheduled tomorrow to consider a proposal to cut elected officials' salaries by 10 percent to help deal with a $15.2 billion state budget deficit. Part of the proposal calls for cutting the salaries of only the assembly members and half of the state senators. Forty state senators might not see any decrease. A spokesman for Senator Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) says that any proposal to cut some legislators' salaries but not others "would seem to violate an equal-pay-for-equal-work standard and would be seen as inherently unfair." Current salaries for elected officials in California start at $116,208 and peak at $212,179, which is the amount Arnold Schwarzenegger would be making if he accepted the governor's salary.