Perry’s Part-Time Congress: Probably Not a Great Idea

Texas Gov. Rick Perry.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickperry/5063661666/sizes/z/in/set-72157625123096632/">Rick Perry</a>/Flickr

Desperate to strike a nerve with anti-Washington Iowa voters at Thursday night’s debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry floated an idea he talks about every now and then on the campaign trail: Make Congress part-time. Perry proposed slashing for pay for elected officials and their staffs, and cutting the amount of time they spend in Washington in half. As a model, he proposed that of the Texas legislature, which meets for just 140 days total, every two years.

It’s a novel idea. It’s also a recipe for disaster. For one thing, as TPM’s Benjy Sarlin reported in November, Texas’ part-time legislature hasn’t done much to make government run smoother. It just puts more power in the hands of Rick Perry:

“It’s just really hard for the legislature get things done withen your government is run by a hundred boards and commissions appointed by a governor who has next to no voice in the legislature,” Bob Stein, a professor of political science at Rice University, told TPM.
“They give the governor a lot of power. Even with Republicans with large majorities, the chairman of finance couldn’t move anything without the governor’s blessing.”

Given the GOP’s crusade against President Obama’s “czars,” advocating that the executive branch have more discretion to fill key slots is an odd position for Perry to take (in Texas, he’s also come under fire for stacking those aforementioned boards with top donors). It also offers a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist—namely that members of Congress (and their staffs) are overpaid and lazy. Generally speaking, they work insanely long hours doing very difficult work, handling a set of responsibilities that have significantly expanded even as the size of Congress has hardly budged. In other words, the problem isn’t the pay; it’s the personnel.