I'm with Jeff on this, for several reasons:

• The amount of money spent per legislator [salary, per diem, and staff and office expenses are quite modest. Much misallocation of these funds would paralyze the ability of the legislator to function, and besides, there are just not that many public dollars at risk.

• The workforce is small enough and the situation close enough to the legislator that the voters can hold her responsible.

• Legislative pay is so low that hiring family is the only way some Senators and Representatives can make ends meet.

• In some cases, legislative aids play important decision making as well as organizational functions. Often the only way a legislator can get someone they can trust with this at the modest salary available is to depend on a friend or family member.

Another good point, John.

Between sessions, legislators receive about $33,000 for 18 months -- which boils down to about $1,846 a month for staff and supplies.

If 100% of this money went to paying one staffer (instead of office supplies) that individual would still be making less than 25,000 dollars a year. Anyone who thinks political staffers are over paid for the work they do is clearly mentally deficient.

Thank you anonymous "legislative staffer"....God, I love that handle...I don't doubt you work harder than I do and, nope, that ain't much of a kitty.

So far I'm not seeing anything to get me excited about enacting limits. In some ways, it's not just the amount of money in play either. I'm not seeing any real difficulty in keeping it simple: give them money for staff allowance, even more if it makes folks happy, and let them use it at their own risk.

No lawmaker ANYWHERE should be allowed to hire relatives because... intelligence is hereditary.

Next thing you know Jenna Bush is Secretary of Dee-Fence! Dee-Fence!

God. My attention to detail is showing again: it was "Legislative Assistant" not "Legislative staffer." Dang it.

Oregon is essentially a $12 billion a year company. And yet we have part time people running it, with less than adequate pay.

They make the legislature full time, and they should compensate the legislators more fairly.

Just to add to what my fellow LA said above, even with the low pay, the budget was so low that a number of offices lost at least one staff member when the session entered July. Therefore, during the busiest time of the session, legislators didn't even have their full staff available.

The "modest defenses" of nepotism offered so far are not really defenses of nepotism, but rather excuses of questionable behavior that could be applied just as well in other situations in public service in which people aren't paid well.

For example, we could implement nepotism throughout state government. We could say that a low-paid supervisor of clerical or student workers in a public agency should be able to hire relatives as a way of padding his or her compensation.

Or we could permit legislators to be able to steal a certain amount of state-owned office equipment and furniture as an income supplement.

If the disease is low pay, I proposed that the cure should not be to increase pay through unethical behavior, or to permit behavior in the legislature that is clearly forbidden to the agencies the legislature oversees.

Mr Bull writes: " . . . provided the public can see who they're hiring and what those hires are earning . . . why not leave it up to lawmakers to decide whom to hire."

Because the public shouldn't have to read about it in the Oregonian. They shouldn't have to wonder whether such things go on in State government. If anything, we should expect legislators to live up to an even higher standard than that imposed on State agencies.

Nepotism in government is wrong. Hiring and supervision practices should be the same for legislators as in other public entities. Hiring should be open and based on qualifications for the job. Salaries should be related to duties and abilities and need to be consistent throughout the legislature.

Open hiring will also create greater opportunites for individuals from diverse backgrounds to serve our government.

Personally, I think there is a case for spouses to work during legislative session--unless they have another career at home. They certainly know the district and the state legislator. They also have the tone of the legislator--from professional to downright snippy.

But that has been an excellent idea sometimes (esp. in rural districts) and a lousy idea other times. The case could be made that one reason Victoria Doyle struck out when she ran for County Clerk is the interaction people had with her working in Dan's office. As in "we deserve (and have had all these years) better customer service and more unbiased accurate information from the County Clerk's office than we experienced from the Doyle office".

But if it is to be a policy, it should be a written policy, not just people complaining about a tradition. And perhaps there are lots of other things that should be written policy for the legislature, like whether a person actually has to be in the capitol bldg. (or on legislative business at a hearing outside the capitol)in order to collect per diem.

I think the funny thing to me in all this is how people use the word "nepotism." They treat it with all the hostility of a herpes rash, strongly declaiming that it's wrong, wrong, wrong, but without ever answering why that is.

Could someone give me a simple explanation as to why nepotism is so wrong - especially keeping in mind that, so long as it's publicly acknowledged, the worst abuses ought to get corrected, as they did in Kelly Wirth's situation, or in the example Kari Chisholm cited in his irst comment.

Some random thoughts on other bits:

1) the analyst says "the public shouldn't have to read about it in the Oregonian." Well, why not? There's this distinct impulse in American politics of infantilizing the voting public, of talking to them like they're morons and encouraging the view that we need this perfect system to keep them safe. While I'm a firm believer in building the best "mouse-trap" possible, I've got issues with micro-managing the thing. And I view this tizzy about nepotism as a case of micro-management. The results a given legislator should speak for themselves (and, yes, not all politcal races are equal or high-toned, but I don't know how you help that); their staff is their responsibility, come hell or high water.

2) Penny York said something I agree with - to paraphrase "the most qualified person should get the job" - but it's so divorced from reality that it's almost irrelevant. I've worked somewhere around 40+ jobs in my day and, based on that, I'd argue that hiring is one of the most hit-or-miss activities one gets in any professional setting. It's just a crap-shoot and that's that. I've survived enough job interviews to know that my pat answers yield the best results even as they're the least revelatory answers I'll give. Absent an effective process, it's a guess. You can't get around that, so why try to legislate it?

Generally, nepotism and patronage in government are not good ideas, for the many reasons that motivaed the establishment of the civil service system. There are exceptions allowed, though. Top advisors to elected officals are usually chosen by patronage, as they are seen as administrative extensions of the elected official. At times, family members are hired through patronage. I hear few objections, these days, to JFK's choice of RFK as Attorney General, although this was nepotism at the highest levels.

I think judgement should be based on risk/benefit analysis, and not on some grand principle. Under the present circumstances I believe nepotism in the offices of legislators holds little risk to the public good and offers substantial benefit. If the amount of money and number of personnel involved were closer to that of Congressional offices, I would see the situation differently.

Ah, that's what I'm fishing for - particularly #2. The "merit" angle is OK, but, if you've ever dealt with bureaucrats (and I have - once professionally - and now I am one) you'll know that the checks built into the current system don't produce significantly better outcomes than one gets through the vetting process at your local McDonalds. But, with the second one, that's a good point: discussing the relationship between the family members and how that produces a benefit to the "family unit," that gets into the harm it can do. In that sense, it just becomes a means to padding the family's wallet; that can be productive or not, which brings us back to the original question. If you just need someone to answer the constituents calls, or to help with mailing, what family member isn't qualified to do that? Some will, no doubt, do it better than others, but you can't legislate for that, not really.

You can do better or worse with a relative as a sounding board - depends on your relative, I suppose - but, beyond that, there's no guarantee that a merit-based system inherently yields better results - provided, of course, no professional certifications come into play (for instance, you wouldn't hire Uncle Bubba to run the deparment of the treasury if his professional bona fides begin and end with running a gas station....nothing against gas stations mind, but you're talking about different skill sets.

And that gets to the larger question: I'm not arguing that nepotism is good; I'm arguing that, in the case of legislative staff, it's relatively harmless. It should tend to raise eyebrows - as it's doing here - in nearly all cases. But, once you get into discussions of nepotism leading to the hiring and promotion of clearly unqualified people (think Brownie, or, say, the governor hiring his brother to run ODOT (is that even an appointment position?)) you're talking about something very different.

For some positions, qualifications genuinely matter. For others, not so much. So, unless a legislative assistant does WAY more than I think they do, I don't see the harm in hiring family. In real terms, for instance, what's the great benefit of a bachelor's degree; for most folks, its meaningless beyond telling the people at large that you 1) can think or 2) can bullshit well enough to convince people you can think. There's nothing magical about political science degrees, to name one (or to hit where I live, a history degree), because they don't tell you all that much about the person holding it.

Tom said:

If the amount of money and number of personnel involved were closer to that of Congressional offices, I would see the situation differently.

I don't know about Congressional offices around here, but I made just over $7/hour when I worked in one. Just like state legislative offices, they received a set amount that was spent on staff & such (unless it's changed in the last few years). A good number of people in the district offices ended up making less than $8/hour.