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The 5.2% increase in the salary of congressmen in the midst of the pandemic was widely rejected. Even sectors such as the Democratic Center assured that they would donate it. However, in the Legislative a decrease in the salary of its members has never prospered.
Just hours before the celebration of Christmas Eve, the government of Iván Duque signed the decree with which the salaries of congressmen are increased. The 5.2% increase had already been set since the middle of the year, but it had not been done due to the pandemic. However, six months later, the Executive signed the decree that requires by constitutional order the increase of salaries to members of the Legislative.
The increase is retroactive, so not only is the current salary increased, but the difference of the money not received is paid to the congressmen since January 1, 2020. These two events created a generalized annoyance, which even led to members of the Democratic Center and the U Party to renounce this money and announce that they will donate it. Likewise, the ruling party announced that in their referendum, with which they seek to get their hands on the transitional justice system, they would include a section to lower the salary of legislators.
This announcement has been branded as populist, and some, like Claudia López, have criticized Uribismo for making these proposals when they have not supported the various projects to reduce and / or freeze the salary of senators and representatives. And it is that in Congress more than 13 initiatives related to the issue have been processed and none have prospered. The majority has stayed in the first debate or has even been studied by the responsible committees.
Since 1997, initiatives have been presented to develop and regulate Article 187 of the Constitution that sets the salary of congressmen, but so far none of these attempts have been successful. The first project of this litter was the controversial Carlos Moreno de Caro, who later went on to different embassies during the government of Álvaro Uribe.
The latter, in 1998, presented a proposal for the allocation of congressmen to be readjusted “in proportion equal to the weighted average of the changes that occurred in the remuneration of central administration servants.” The project barely managed to have a first debate presentation and was shelved due to a change of legislature.
A year later, the Legislature again allowed another project to be filed that was his salary. On this occasion the congressmen Luis Elmer Arenas, Claudia Blum -now Chancellor-, Jimmy Chamorro Aurelio Iragorri Hormaza, Viviane Morales, among others, proposed that the adjustment of the salary of the congressmen be given with the projection of the variation of the price indices to the consumer (CPI) for said year. Like its predecessor, the project barely received one presentation and was never debated.
Moreno de Caro tried his proposal again in 1999, but he sank again. On the other hand, in 2000, José Ignacio Arboleda, José Alfredo Araujo and others presented an initiative that established that the readjustment of the salary of the congressmen should be through a weighted average of the increases of the other “servants of the local administration ”, But Congress did not discuss this proposal either.
The issue seemed to disappear from the agenda until in 2015 it was brought up again by Claudia López and the Centro Democrático. Both filed projects that addressed this issue. While at that time the opposition party proposed that the salaries of congressmen be frozen for four years, the senator of the Greens, with Jimmy Chamorro, Juan Carlos Losada and others, presented an initiative that asked that the salaries of congressmen could not exceed 30 minimum wages.
Both projects were accumulated into one and, despite having authors from different parties, it was not discussed even once and was filed due to expiration of terms. Chamorro came to propose another way to reduce the salary, and it was about paying per session attended, but this initiative did not come to be established as such.
In 2016, several members of the Green Alliance tried again, who presented a constitutional reform proposal in which it was established that the salaries of congressmen could not exceed 25 minimum wages. This proposal was criticized by conservatives, such as Roberto Gerlein; members of the Democratic Center, such as Alfredo Rangel; and even Vivian Morales, who was active in liberalism.
Rangel and Morales described the proposal led by Claudia López as opportunistic. This is due to the fact that supposedly the decrease in the salaries of congressmen was in 2018, when it would no longer be part of the Legislative. However, López rejected these accusations because he assured that this decrease would come progressively, starting from when the articles came into force. Despite the discussions, the proposal did not even have its first debate in Commission.
On the other hand, at the same time, from Uribism, a project was presented that established that the salary of congressmen would be set for 4 years by the same increase in the minimum wage. The proposal passed in the first debate without problem, but in plenary session of the Chamber it collapsed.
In 2017 and 2018, members of the Democratic Center and close to that party presented similar proposals, but none of them prospered and they only stayed in the first debate. Given the impossibility of a salary reform through the legislative process, this proposal was presented in the anti-corruption consultation, led by Claudia López and Angélica Lozano.
Although the question related to the salary of congressmen was one of the most positively voted, the minimum number of votes was not reached to make it binding, so it did not pass. It is worth remembering that the Democratic Center presented great opposition to this participatory process, but the Government decided to promote its flags.
This led to two projects being presented in 2018, one from the Duque government and others from the opposition to set the salary of congressmen at a maximum of 25 minimum wages and could be frozen in that case. Both were merged into one, which collapsed due to the refusal of several congressmen to discuss the issue since they declared themselves disabled.
The congressmen argued that they were not willing to lose their seats for legislating in their own right, since, according to various legal concepts, voting on the initiative would cause them to incur a conflict of interest. The initiative went on to be discussed in the Second Commission, but this collapsed because they did not give the times for its four debates.
On the other hand, Senator Gustavo Bolívar has led the initiative so that the payment of congressmen is per session and that it cannot exceed the 25 legal minimum wages. In addition, this proposal stipulates that the salary increase for congressmen is the same as the minimum salary. However, it has not prospered.
Now last, with the pandemic and remote sessions, proposals and proposals have been presented that limit the expenses of representation, which is a good part of the salaries of congressmen. The project related to this issue was filed by Bolívar, but it has not been debated so far and there is not even a presentation of the text.
Similarly, in the bill that regulated virtual sessions, a proposal was also introduced so that those who sat in virtual form would not receive representation expenses, but this was denied by the government bench, which called it populist and unrelated with the amendment to the fifth law of 1992, which governs the Congress regulations.
