In a move that will be wildly popular on the heels of the Prop 1F passage, the California Citizens Compensation Committee will reduce salaries by 18%, reducing the legislators gross salary from $116,208 to $95,291. Under Prop 112 passed by voters in 1990, the Committee sets salaries of legislators and higher offices. [Prop 140 later eliminated retirement benefits for legislators as well as installing term limits] Under the rules the cuts cannot take effect until Dec 2010.
Prop 6, passed in 1972, prohibits reduction of pay during a legislators current term. Incoming and re-elected Senators and Assembly representatives will see that cut then.
The new lower salary will actually be less than the salary was back in 2004, when it was $99,000. The Committee then saw fit to hike it 3 times in 2 years as I recall to about $111,000, then $113,000 and finally the current $116,208 figure [leadership gets a higher salary] Taxpayers I happened to talk to about this today laughed when I told ’em of this news. "Pay for performance" one told me.
As a whole, yep!