A new pitch for increasing pay for state legislators: appoint a commission to consider it

The old joke around the State Capitol is that legislators get paid "$12,000 a year and all you can eat and drink."

That is a reference to all the free meals – and, OK, maybe a drink or two – dispensed at the almost daily events hosted by lobbying groups during legislative sessions.

But in reality, it's no laughing matter that state senators in Nebraska get paid so little for representing us.

George Norris, the founder of the one-house Unicameral Legislature in our state, argued that such a system would save the state money. To be sure, reducing the number of state lawmakers in Nebraska from th...