OAG 40-100.

• Case Date: November 23, 1940
• Court: Oregon

Oregon Attorney General Opinions 1940. OAG 40-100. 113OPINION NO. 40-100[20 Or. Op. Atty. Gen. 113]The legislature does not have authority to increase the pay of its members fixed by the Constitution.November 23, 1940.Hon. Richard L. Neuberger,Representative Elect, Fifth District. Dear Mr. Neuberger: In your letter of November 12, 1940, you refer to Article XIII of the Constitution of Oregon, which provides that the governor shall receive an annual salary of $1500 per year; to § 67-601, Oregon Code 1930, as last amended by chapter 4, Oregon Laws, 1927, providing, among other salary increases, for an increase of the annual salary of the governor to $7,500 per year; and to § 29, Article IV of the Constitution, which provides:

"The members of the legislative assembly shall receive for their services a sum not to exceed three dollars a day, from the commencement of the session; but such pay shall not exceed in the aggregate one hundred and twenty dollars for per diem allowance for any one session. When convened in extra session by the governor, they shall receive three dollars per day; but no extra session shall continue for a longer period than twenty days. * * *"

You ask to be advised as to whether or not a law may be enacted, increasing the pay of members of the legislature from three to eight dollars per day, similar to that by which the pay of the governor was increased to $7,500 per year by the provisions of § 67-601, referred to above. After an appropriation by legislative act providing for the payment of the general expenses of the legislature during the 1929 session, the following House Concurrent Resolution was passed:

"That the secretary of state is hereby authorized and directed to audit and allow, in the same manner as other claims against the appropriation made for the

...