LEGISLATIVE PAY: HANDLE IT IN REGULAR SESSION

Evidently, this is the way you go about soliciting votes for the top leadership position in the Democratic Caucus in the Missouri House of Representatives: You write a letter to the governor, copying all your colleagues, asking him to go to the trouble of calling a special session for the purpose of raising legislators' pay. At least that is the approach taken last month by one aspiring House leader: Speaker Pro Tem James Kreider, D-Nixa. Kreider has let it be known that he wants to replace House Speaker Steve Gaw, D-Moberly, who is running for the Democratic nomination for secretary of state.

The fact that Kreider would reduce such a proposal to writing is simply amazing. Kreider's laughable proposal is everything he ordinarily isn't -- that is to say, presumptuous, arrogant and defiant of common sense. In fact, it is so beyond the pale that no one outside his office took it seriously. The governor's office responded with a curt statement saying that there would be no such call for a special session.

Readers should know that when budgetary conditions permit, lawmakers get regular cost-of-living salary adjustments. Along with other state employees, lawmakers have received these increases each of the last seven budget years, and one was included in this year's budget before it met with the governor's veto pen.

Kreider took the occasion to call for abolition of the state Commission on the Compensation of Elected Officials. Abolition of this bogus commission, which should never have been adopted in the first place, has long been urged by this newspaper. But such action surely isn't the stuff of a special session. Lawmakers could have passed and sent to the people a proposed constitutional amendment abolishing it. They should take this up again next year upon their return.

The folks Kreider has represented in Southwest Missouri's Christian County since 1992 are famous for their thrifty ways. One can only wonder how the Kreider letter is going over among his constituents in that conservative part of the state.