I’d forgotten about this.
Republicans in Washington are famous for accepting congressional pay raises even though the debt has reached $8.5 trillion under their watch while they continue to do nothing to balance the budget. Congressional candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs was one of five on the Houston City Council to accept a pay raise during a city-wide financial crisis in 2004. At the time, Houston faced an $8 million budget shortfall and projected gaps of more than $70 million for the following year.
[…]
In 2004, Sekula-Gibbs was one of only five of fourteen City Council members to accept a pay raise, despite maintaining a private medical practice on the side. The Houston Chronicle reported that Houston “faces an anticipated $8 million shortfall this fiscal year, according to the controller’s office. The gap for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, has been projected as high as $74 million by the finance and administration office.†Sekula-Gibbs declined to comment on acceptance of the 12% raise. [Houston Chronicle, 1/15/04, 1/16/04]
Welcome to the table, Shelley. The Chron articles cited can be found here and here. The full story is more nuanced than this, since the money for the raises goes to the Council members’ budgets whether they take it home as pay or not, but that’s life in the big city. I don’t imagine ads funded by the $3 million of national GOP money will be any fairer than that.
Besides, I figure that for the most part, Shelley will be mostly if not totally ignored in Nick Lampson’s advertising. This race is not much different than most well-funded-incumbent-versus-little-known-challenger campaigns. Especially with the write-in component, there’s no percentage in Lampson adding to her name recognition. I don’t expect the DCCC or any other organization to spend much if anything on attacks ads for the same reason. I could be wrong about this, especially if a big barrage of anti-Lampson pieces hits the airwaves, but at this point I don’t see it.
The full story is more nuanced than this, since the money for the raises goes to the Council members’ budgets whether they take it home as pay or not, but that’s life in the big city.
Of course, if someone had spun the decisions of Adrian Garcia or Ada Edwards or Carol Mims Galloway to take the money as “life in the big city” I suspect some partisans would find the nuance of more importance. 🙂
Michael Berry got it right at the time: “This is supposed to be about public service and a personal sacrifice. You don’t serve on City Council to make money; you serve to make a difference.”
It’s hard to imagine Doctor-Councilwoman being the nominee in 2008. It won’t be too hard for oppo researchers to hit the open Chron archives. They won’t even have to pay for Factiva!