Josh Goodman is a former staff writer for GOVERNING..
E-mail: mailbox@governing.comTwitter: @governing
State legislators in Louisiana came to the blasphemous conclusion that they, as people who oversee billions of dollars and make critically important policy decisions, should be paid more than Wal-Mart baggers. So they voted to raise their annual pay from $16,800 to $37,500.
The result isn't pretty, as John Maginnis writes:
Bumming out lawmakers even more is the realization that the nuclear blast from this issue vaporized all the session's accomplishments that they hoped to take credit for. Here is a largely new bunch of legislators who raised ethics standards to the highest in the country, cut business and personal taxes, ramped up highway construction, raised teacher pay and balanced the budget with nearly $1 billion in surplus - and they leave Baton Rouge as the most cursed and reviled Legislature in modern history. What a business.
Josh Goodman is a former staff writer for GOVERNING..
E-mail: mailbox@governing.com 
GOVERNING Politics is the place for news and analysis on campaigns and elections. If there's a ballot measure in California, a legislative election in Alabama, a mayoral election in Anchorage or a governor's race in Rhode Island, GOVERNING Politics probably is writing about it. We love everything about state and local politics, from polls and campaign ads to policy debates and demographic trends.
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