From the Texas Tribune: Part-Time Legislature Can Create Financial Hardship

This fits our recent 2306 discussion of the design of the governing institutions in Texas, and especially the consequences of a part-time, amateur legislature.

The state's founders envisioned the part-time Legislature as a place where there would be no room for full-time politicians. Tying lawmakers to their districts for all but five months every two years would keep them connected to the constituents they had been elected to serve. But in the modern Legislature, the paltry pay that goes along with being expected to earn a living elsewhere can have the opposite effect — narrowing the ranks of potential office-holders to only those who can afford to do it full time.

That’s because for most members, the demands of public office aren't quite limited to January through May in odd-numbered years. The needs of their constituents and the issues they must follow to make public policy don’t go away during the interim, nor do the campaigns they must orchestrate to stay in office.

“When I decided to run, I looked at, well, 140 days every other year, you can probably hold your breath that long,” said former state Rep. Rob Eissler, a Republican from The Woodlands who was first elected in 2002.

As his responsibilities as a lawmaker grew, that impression quickly changed, he said.

“It starts to engulf you. You lie in bed at night trying to think of ways to make things better, and that you have opportunity to do it,” he said.