GOP senator blocking pay raise for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

It’s rare for Washington officials to decline a pay raise, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he doesn’t want one if it means meeting the demands of a former Senate colleague eager to expand offshore oil drilling.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is attempting to restore the interior secretary’s pay to its original rate after a constitutional clause forced Congress to reduce it in 2009.

A clause in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution bars lawmakers from serving in an executive branch position for which they voted for a salary increase. Salazar, a former senator from Colorado, voted to increase Cabinet salaries before joining the Obama administration in 2009.

In order to accommodate lawmakers who leave for executive branch jobs, Congress regularly votes to cut the salary of the position to its previous rate. The “Saxbe fix” — named for former senator William Saxbe (R-Ohio), who quit the Senate to serve as attorney general in 1973 — was also used to curtail the secretary of state’s salary before Hillary Rodham Clinton assumed the position.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-senator-blocking-pay-raise-for-interior-secretary-ken-salazar/2011/05/25/AGEyKXBH_story.html

[Bubba Kush]

1. Oh, it's Diaper Boi Vitter...

Well, eff him.

And also, eff Salazar (I don't like him, and still hate him for not letting Mike Miles win the Senate seat)

[Angry Dragon]

2. Harry leave it be, it is a good law

[Jumping John]

3. Salazar is now elligible for the raise under that law. Reid isn't trying to change the law N/T

[Angry Dragon]

4. Thank you

[Angry Dragon]

5. vitter should be charged with coercion

It is time to start bringing lawsuits against these people for this type of abuse of their office

When is vitter going to start earning his pay, maybe he needs to change his diapers

[wordpix]

6. aha! I actually agree with Vitter but for different reasons. Salazar SHOULD start earning his keep

by regulating the oil corpos instead of giving them free rein in the Gulf, where they're again gearing up with renewed deepwater drilling permits despite the BOPs not working.

Vitter and I agree Salazar shouldn't get an increase. Now maybe Salazar can see that his "friends" in the oil biz only want more, more, more. They're nothing but greedy SOB's. The chickens are coming home to roost for Salazar who gave them everything, did not fix the deficient, dysfunctional MMS, and now grants permits despite BOPs that don't work. Yet Big Oil and their congressional sluts aren't satisfied and never will be satisfied until they have permits on every square inch of the continental shelf.

[mitchtv]

7. he doesn't deserve a raise

are they kidding? raises?

[rpannier]

8. +1 nt