Sam Singh is leaving Michigan’s Legislature … just as voters intended

One of the most talented legislators I’ve witnessed in my 25 years on the job is hanging up after this year. 

He’s at no risk of getting beaten at the ballot box. He’s not cloaked in scandal. He’s not at the traditional retirement age. The Democrats have better than even odds of keeping a majority in the Senate.

In fact, Senate Majority Floor Leader Sam Singh has plenty of tread left on the tires. Last year, he won his second Senator of the Year award. He passed more public acts in the calendar year than any of his 146 legislative colleagues.

Singh has been behind some of the more complicated deals we’ve had here in Lansing. Energy policy. Economic development. The tipped wage issue. Earned sick time.

And yet, you probably wouldn’t know it because he doesn’t steal the spotlight or hold a bunch of press conferences. In fact, I can’t remember any press conferences he’s spearheaded since he’s been a state Senator.

So why would someone in their prime hang it up?

Singh has been vague publicly about his reasons, but as someone roughly his age with a wife and young son, I’ll give you my frank opinion.

Being a legislator is not a career. 

The pay is far from lucrative. The pensions are gone. Plus, you’re term-limited out of office after 12 years, so you have a shot clock on your head the day you sign up.

It didn’t used to be that way.

In the 1970s, the movement was to professionalize the Legislature. The idea was that by juicing up compensation, quality people would want to stay in the business for a long time. The longer a legislator serves, the better they produce. The better production helps the entire state of Michigan.

That was the argument anyway.

That all turned on its head by the 1990s. 

The public felt the compensation packages were too much, too out of step with the public. Not only were the politicians getting rich, but they were also positioned to stay rich for a long period of time.

Michigan voters passed the strictest term-limit law in the country. Entire crops of legislators started cycling through the state House of Representatives every six years. It’s hard to justify a pension if you’re only at a job for six years.

Then, a big whammy occurred.

Back in 2000, legislators gave themselves a 38% pay raise, boosting their salary to $79,650, which was good pay at the time. 

Knowing they’d all be term-limited out of a job, and the pensions were coming to an end. These outgoing legislators boosted their pay to improve their pension payout and then screwed everyone who came behind them.

After the new rate went into effect, the lawmakers put on the ballot a constitutional amendment that makes it politically difficult for any future pay hike to go into effect. Voters gleefully passed it.

The result? There’s been no raises for 25 years. Instead, legislators cut their pay during the Great Recession and now make $71,685 a year. 

If lawmakers had given themselves inflationary raises from 2002 to the present, they’d be making $146,000 a year.

Now, they make as much as your average state bureaucrat while their buying power drops. Numerous legislative staffers make more than their bosses. 

Singh, who turned 55 the other day, is at his prime money-making age. 

If he signed up for another four years, he’d be pushing 60 and could lose out on opportunities to earn much more money in the private sector.

Do you blame him? I don’t.

So, instead, someone new can get an opportunity to serve. The new person can make all the contacts, learn all the issues and figure out the system. Maybe that person will be as effective as Singh. Maybe not.

It doesn’t really matter because the system is working … exactly as the voters intended it to work.

 (Kyle Melinn is the editor of the Capitol news service MIRS. You can email him at melinnky@gmail.com.)