State senator introduces constitutional amendment raising lawmaker pay to $30,000

Nebraska state senators could see their salaries increased if a constitutional amendment introduced in the Legislature Friday were to go into effect.

Sen. Myron Dorn, a Republican from Gage County, introduced LR7CA to increase the pay of state senators in Nebraska to $30,000 annually. Currently, state senators are paid $1,000 each month for a total of $12,000. That rate was first set in 1988.

The constitutional amendment would require votes from three-fifths of the Legislature and a majority of Nebraska voters in the next statewide election. The new salary would take effect in 2027, after Dorn is term-limited from office.

Dorn said the low salary keeps people who aren’t already wealthy or retired from running for the state legislature.

"There's probably some very, very good people that would run, could run, that are sitting there and saying, 'I have a family, or I have this and can't financially afford it,'" he said.

Legislative session lengths alternate between 60 and 90 business days each year, stretched out over four to six months, but Dorn said the duties of a state senator are a like a full time job. When he began serving in the Legislature, Dorn tried farming on the evenings and weekends, but soon realized he didn't have enough time.

"Here in the session, we will be putting in anywhere from, I call it 60 to 80 to 90 hours. Every senator will be putting that in. If you don't think that's a full time job, then I'd like to visit with you," he said. "When we are out of session, I put two to three full days in every week during the summer, and when we're not in session I know some of the senators put more than that in, but you are still a full time senator."

The National Conference of State Legislatures classifies the Nebraska Unicameral as a Gray legislature, meaning that the job of state senators is less than a full-time affair, but enough to make it nearly impossible to work a second job. The NCSL estimated that the average senator in a Gray legislature works 74% of a typical full-time job on their legislative work in session, constituent service, interim committee work and election campaigns, based on surveys from 2014.

In 2012, Nebraskans had the opportunity to vote on raising legislator pay up to $22,500, but the amendment was overwhelmingly rejected. Dorn said he's recently heard the opposite sentiment from people he's talked to.

"Part of what I hear, especially from constituents, is they can't believe that our salary is that low and that, 'Why hasn't the salary been raised'?" he said.

State lawmaker pay has increased recently in other nearby states. In Kansas, state legislator pay nearly doubled this year. Most lawmakers there now receive a salary of $58,000, up from $30,000 last year.

South Dakota linked its legislator pay to the one-fifth of state's median household income in 2018. Lawmakers there will receive a nearly $3,000 raise up to $16,348 for 2025.

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