Senator Scored For a Scheme To Raise Pay

A veteran state senator is coming under fire from an upstart rival for proposing legislation that would award $1,000-a-week bonuses to lawmakers who agree to work full-time and give up their outside incomes.

The idea, however, may contain the contours of the compromise necessary for Governor Paterson to give lawmakers their first pay raise in a decade, according to lawmakers and independent observers.

They say the governor, who has expressed reluctance about raising lawmakers' pay at a time when New York's finances are in disarray, would be more amenable if the money were conditioned on an agreement to abandon their private work, which has often been a source of conflict-of-interest concerns.

Under a bill introduced last year by Senator Martin Connor, a former minority leader who represents Brooklyn Heights and Lower Manhattan, and sponsored by 12 of his colleagues, lawmakers would have the option of serving as full-time members and receiving an additional allowance of $52,000 a year above their base salary of $79,500.

In exchange, they would agree to work 1,820 hours a year (or 35 hours a week) and forfeit outside sources of "active" income derived from any employment, professional practice, or consulting work.

Lawmakers would be allowed to keep earnings from book royalties, lottery winnings, and investments.

If the Democratic speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, opted in, for instance, he would be required to abandon his outside work at Weitz & Luxenberg, a personal injury firm where the lawmaker has been employed as an "of counsel" attorney since October 2002. Mr. Silver chooses not to disclose his earnings from the firm, which pays him for making client referrals.

Mr. Silver, however, would be allowed to keep his portfolio of securities, another major source of wealth. The speaker, according to his most recent ethics filing, owns stock in dozens of companies, including Exxon Mobil, Sunoco, Marathon Oil, and ConocoPhillips. The public filings do not specify the value of the investments.

Mr. Silver also earned income from the sale of stock, including stock in Triad Hospitals, a publicly traded for-profit hospital operator acquired by Community Health Systems.

A spokesman for Mr. Silver declined to comment on Mr. Connor's bill.

The legislation, which has failed to gain traction in the Senate or to be introduced in the Assembly, attracted new attention earlier this week after Mr. Connor's rival in the Democratic primary, 28-year-old Daniel Squadron, sought to raise it as a campaign issue, telling the New York Post that "it's these sorts of self-serving ideas that are exactly what's wrong with Albany."

In an interview, Mr. Connor defended his proposal as a way to address demands from lawmakers, who long have clamored for a higher salary, and concerns aired by watchdog groups that the work performed by legislators potentially conflicts with legislative agendas.

Weitz & Luxenberg, for instance, handles many medical malpractice cases. Mr. Silver has come under criticism by doctors and fiscal groups for blocking legislation that would set limits on medical malpractice awards.

"With all the questions that are still around about outside income, we should head in a direction for banning all outside income. And obviously, to do that you have to pay people more than you did when they were part-time," Mr. Connor said. "I would urge the governor to consider supporting this. It's a way to professionalize the Legislature and remove the clouds that hang over the institution."

The legislative counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group, Russ Haven, said the legislation could prove to be a more politically palatable option for Mr. Paterson, allowing him to use pay raises as a bargaining chip without provoking as much voter anger.

Lawmakers, he said, "would strengthen their hand for a pay raise if they provided the public more information about what they're doing when they're not on the public clock."

Mr. Connor predicted that over time most lawmakers, even those with lucrative outside business, would join the full-time cohort.

"The political reality is that it would be two to four years to opt in or they would be facing the wrath of their constituents," Mr. Connor said.

A Democratic senator of Manhattan, Liz Krueger, said the bill is "one approach that could make some sense," but said she prefers that lawmakers establish an independent commission that would recommend new salary levels for lawmakers and other elected officials.