Cranley swears off pay raises

Cincinnati City Councilman John Cranley, the Democrat who’s running against Republican Rep. Steve Chabot of Westwood in the 1st Congressional District, says members of Congress shouldn’t accept pay raises until they pay off the federal budget deficit, which the White House forecasts will be a record $423 billion this year.

To make his point, Cranley plans to sign a pledge at a news conference tomorrow that, if elected, he won't accept a congressional pay raise until the federal budget is balanced. That means that if Congress passes a pay raise – like it did last year – Cranley will return the amount of the raise to the U.S. Treasury.

Incidentally, that’s what Cranley did last year when the Cincinnati City Council got a pay raise that he didn’t vote for. Cranley’s salary increased to $60,645.75, but Cranley said he paid back the $1,421.11 raise in two installments. He was not alone – many council members also returned the raise. While former councilmen David Pepper and Christopher Smitherman wrote checks for the entire amount on the spot, Cranley reached for his credit card – only to learn that the city treasurer doesn’t accept them.

“They don’t take credit cards? Who’s got $1,800 in cash?” he said at the time.

If he’s elected to Congress, Cranley’s salary would nearly triple in size to $165,200. That’s the amount House members now make after a pay raise of $3,100 went into affect this year.

Chabot voted last year to either cancel that raise or force lawmakers to vote directly on it, but both efforts failed. He has been a longtime opponent to congressional pay raises, voting several times in the 1990s to cancel them, spokesman Gary Lindgren said.

Check back here at the Politics Extra blog or read the Enquirer on Friday for more details about Cranley's pledge and Chabot's longtime opposition to pay raises.

UPDATE: Read the story in Friday's Enquirer about Cranley's pledge on pay raises here.