KINDER'S COMMENTARY: A LESSON LEARNED -- THE HARD WAY -- ON LEGISLATIVE PENSION BILL

"When I make a mistake," said the late New York mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, "it's a beaut." We who erred in voting for House Bills 1455 and 1463, which contained a legislative pension increase, can empathize with him.

The House bill came before the Senate on Wednesday, May 13, during the grueling last week of the session that would end at 6 p.m. on Friday, May 15. That week had already seen one late-night session featuring a filibuster that kept us in until 2:20 a.m. Monday. Long days and nights follow each other in the furious pace of the last week.

A senior senator from St. Louis handled the bill, which I had read. He is one of two senators serving as trustees of the Missouri State Employees Retirement System. His counterpart, state Sen. John Russell, R-Lebanon, was out of the chamber and ultimately missed the vote on the bill. In retrospect, this fact should have been something of a red flag for me and for others.

A little history. State lawmakers are currently paid $27,500 annually. Three or four years ago I voted against the only other pension increase to come before the General Assembly during my tenure. Last year, a newly created state commission on compensation proposed large new increases totaling thousands of dollars in our pay as state legislators, along with big increases for judges as well. According to provisions of a new constitutional amendment voters had adopted, unless we lawmakers disapproved it by the end of February, the pay hikes would take effect.

I helped lead the fight against our pay increase. We stopped it.

This year, the sponsor of the retirement measure told us all he was doing in the bill was increasing the amount by $50 per month times the number of terms served. I was one of the few senators to rise to my feet to question him. Retirement bills are difficult to read and, as with many others, we in part rely on representations made by the sponsor. He assured us this was all the bill did and that the required actuarial study had been performed. After brief inquiries, I sat down. A couple of colleagues briefly questioned the sponsor.

Then came the vote on the bill. I agonized for a while before voting yes. Afterward, I considered changing my vote to no, and of course now wish I had done so. (Senators may change their votes either way during that brief interlude before the president announces the result.)

The next day's St. Louis Post-Dispatch contained a tiny, one-paragraph item stating that lawmakers had voted an increase in legislative pensions amounting to $50 per month. I mention this to show that the news media hadn't yet tumbled to the almost universally unknown kicker that was in the bill. This was discovered and reported only a week later.

What emerged was that in a tiny, seven-word change, the sponsor's amendment dramatically adjusted the pensions for older lawmakers who had served past the age of 55, in some cases even tripling their salary in pension compensation to an ungodly figure of more than $79,000. This feature in no way applied to me or to other lawmakers who came in as eight-year term limits were taking effect. None of us will ever receive anything like the fat pensions of those who have served decades, and for whom this amendment was quietly written.

On Friday, May 29, I wrote to Gov. Mel Carnahan urging his veto of the bill. This he did on Friday.

A major mistake was made, and I participated in it. As soon as I discovered it, I asked the governor, in writing, to veto the bill. He did the right thing. Our system -- a free press combined with checks and balances such as the veto -- works.

Lesson learned.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.