Last year, his HB 212
would have prohibited state government employment by any legislator upon his
leaving of office (during a term, by defeat, by term limitation, or voluntarily
at the end of a term) in a state government job until two years after he left. The
problem with that was it might have discouraged perfectly capable people with
valuable contributions to be made from serving the state, so this
space recommended some changes to do a better job of discouraging those who
really were there to serve enough time to draw or to increase a state pension or
that might influence their voting behavior in the Legislature to suck up to a
governor in the hopes of getting such a job.
That bill never even got to a committee vote. This year, his HB 14 does
just about the same thing, except it limits the restriction to “unclassified”
employment. An unclassified employee is one who, for hiring and retention
purposes, does not go through typical state civil service merit procedures.
Most have their own agency-specific rules regarding this, based upon merit
qualifications, but some unclassified positions are purely political
appointees, able to be hired and fired at the will of the governor, other state
elected executive officials, some state appointed officials, and some
legislative and judicial leaders.
Perhaps Richard (much
like state Treas. John Kennedy once did) does not understand that an “unclassified”
employee is not the same as the subset of “at-will” employees, which probably was
the target of the legislation. Narrowing the scope does improve it, insofar as
merit qualifications meant politics unlikely would affect a hiring decision
into the classified service (at least at agencies where politics does not
corrupt the process). But the “unclassified” scenario could present a problem
along these lines: what if a highly-qualified physician served in the Legislature,
and then at retirement wanted to work in a job open in the (diminishing)
charity hospital system? This law would prevent that, even though merit
qualifications would be applied to the hiring process and he well might be the
best qualified.
So adding language that would make it clear that the prohibition covers
only political appointees hired and fired at the will of the officer that do
not have attendant merit requirements would create a much better bill, and one
more faithful to Richard’s presumed purpose. Still, this could exclude
individuals that aren’t there for a pension or because a governor (for example)
wanted them to vote a certain way, but simply because legislative and other experience
makes them capable, besides presumed loyalty to an appointer and his agenda.
Thus, the previous suggestions for amending the bill into a more
workable form continue to hold true. First, a legislator could not take this
employment if in the final term in that office, until four years after that
term would be over – at the end of two terms, either you make yourself eligible
for immediate employment if something comes open, or you wait as many as eight
years for that to happen. Second, if legislators serving first or second terms
wish to take jobs before the end of their terms, they cannot until their term
is complete – thus, you could not resign for the reason of immediately moving
into a state job unless you have not been sworn in for another term. Third, if
a recently-retired legislator is in a state retirement system already and this
new job also would qualify him to be in another defined benefit system, instead
the ex-legislator would have his retirement portion put into a defined
contribution plan that would not allow his defined benefit plan to accrue any
service credit.
This does restrict legislator options – but service in the Legislature
is just that, service first to the people and secondarily to him, and
sacrifices are part of that. It might mean the state can’t get a good worker into
office when that office is open – if somebody is a first- or second-termer and
the opening comes midway through a term – but as this would apply only to
at-will employees where merit may not be so much as a consideration as is loyalty,
there inherently is some sacrificing of merit when considering this kind of
employee anyway. But it does enhance the integrity of the legislative process
and maximizes the chances that any legislator who does choose this route does
it for the right reasons.
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