The cost of low pay: The $12,000 salary is warping the Nebraska Legislature

Third-party ads that targeted state Sen. Tony Vargas during his recent run for U.S. Congress featured incredulous voices, baffled over a seemingly selfish move: He wanted to "double his own salary" with taxpayer money.

What the ads didn't say: Nebraska's 49 lawmakers have been paid $12,000 a year since George H. W. Bush was first elected president, leg warmers were en vogue and Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" blasted unironically from boomboxes. If their pay had kept pace with inflation since 1988, senators today would make more than $30,000.

Low pay affects the composition of the Nebraska legislature, lawmakers and experts say.

Nebraska lawmakers' average age is 57. Most are retired, semiretired or in a position to take significant time away from their primary jobs.

Low pay, lots of work

Sen. Wendy DeBoer works 80 hours a week while the Nebraska legislature is in session.

But the job doesn't end with the session. DeBoer, an Omaha-area Democrat recently re-elected to the officially nonpartisan legislature, estimates she spends eight-20 hours per week on legislative work when it's not in session. Going to meetings, attending hearings and talking to constituents.

That made it tough to continue her previous work as an adjunct college professor. This fall, for the first time since she was elected, she taught at Hastings College.

The National Conference of State Legislatures counts Nebraska among 26 "hybrid" legislatures where the job equates to more than two-thirds of full-time yet pay is too low to be a person's only income.

That means relying more on summaries written by others, DeBoer said.

"By requiring our legislators to have another job ... we are necessarily giving outsize voices to lobbyists and interested stakeholders," she said.

Senators are paid $1,000 monthly, and can get some expenses reimbursed.

They don't get benefits, but can buy the state's health insurance – plans with monthly premiums up to about three times higher than a senator's pay before taxes.

Nebraska's base salary is in the bottom five among similar legislatures. By comparison, Iowa's legislators make $25,000, Missouri's make $36,813, and Oklahoma's $47,500.

Who serves?

Most Nebraskans couldn't afford to take the job, said Peverill Squire, political science professor at the University of Missouri. Squire has researched state legislatures for decades and created the "Squire Index," a measure of the bodies' professionalism.

"You're asking a lot of people to run for the legislature, put up with everything that goes along with serving in politics these days, and to have it come at – for most people, it would be a fairly significant financial cost," he said.