Candidates say less pay OK

• By SARAH CHACKO
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Sep 22, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Candidates in the 6th U.S. Congressional District race say they are prepared for a possibly smaller income associated with being a congressman.

The annual salary for a rank-and-file member of Congress in 2008 is $169,300.

House members generally cannot make more than $25,830 in outside income in the 2008 calendar year, according to the U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, also known as the House ethics committee.

“You can’t have a job that requires your active participation,” said U.S. Rep. Don Cazayoux, D-New Roads. “It’s not about the income.
It’s not about the money. It’s just an honor to serve.”

His two challengers in the Nov. 4 election — state Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, and state Rep. Michael Jackson, No Party-Baton Rouge — agree, saying the sacrifice is worth the service.

According to Cazayoux’s financial disclosure statement for 2007, he earned $26,808 as a state representative and $70,170 in gross income for his private legal practice.

Cassidy, a physician, and Jackson, a lawyer, do not have to disclose their personal finances as state legislators. Both candidates declined to estimate their incomes for this story.

The state legislators do have to report the income they receive from government contracts or work.

Public records show that Cassidy received $337,127 from his contract with LSU Health Sciences Center in 2007. The Jackson Bell law firm received $338,906 from state contracts in 2007.

U.S. House rules prohibit compensation for certain types of services where a member has a fiduciary relationship with his or her client, such as legal, real estate, insurance, medicine, architecture or financial work.

The U.S. House amended its rules in 2003 to exempt medical practice from the fiduciary relationship prohibition, according to the ethics committee Web site. But medical practitioners are allowed to make only enough to cover their “actual and necessary expenses,” not for profit.

Former U.S. Rep. John Cooksey said he kept his ophthalmology practice during his six years in Congress but barely made enough to cover his overhead.

“I was not a career politician,” said Cooksey, a Republican from Monroe. “I knew that I was not going to become a lobbyist and, when I finished my time in Congress, I intended to return to the practice.”