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I come today not to scold but to express my extreme admiration for the boldness, the creativity, the sheer chutzpah employed by one of the savviest operators in the Arizona Legislature.
And I don’t mean Wendy Rogers, R-wherever.
Rogers’ scam is to claim to be living in the district she represents — in a mobile home in Flagstaff and not in her longtime home in Tempe or even the new one she recently bought for $750,000 in Chandler.
No, the Legislature’s operator-of-the-year award goes to Rep. Jacqueline Parker.
Parker moves 18 miles, gets a pay boost
Parker is perhaps best known for her dismissal of Don Bolles, the Arizona Republic reporter who for years exposed organized crime and took on crooked politicians until June 1976 when a bomb planted under his car was detonated, killing him.
“So, the only thing this guy accomplished is that he was a reporter?” Parker asked earlier this year, as Republicans met to consider whether he was worthy of a privately funded memorial at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza. (They decided he wasn’t.)
Parker, meanwhile, has a notable accomplishment of her own.
It seems this lawmaker, an attorney and member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, figured out a way to collect more than $35,000 (and still counting) in per-diem payments this year while her fellow legislators just a few miles away have gotten a mere $4,000 to $5,000.
She did it by moving from Mesa to a home elsewhere in her district — 18 miles away, in San Tan Valley, an unincorporated part of Pinal County near Queen Creek.
It’s totally legal. But it reeks.
Especially when you consider that the cash she’s happily stuffing into her pockets was supplied by Arizona taxpayers.
She now gets $119, not $10, a day
The story comes to us from reporter Dillon Rosenblatt, who specializes in chasing public records and writing about them in his Fourth Estate 48 newsletter on Substack.
Rosenblatt obtained per-diem and mileage records in this, the longest-ever legislative session, to see how much our leaders are pulling down in daily expense pay and in reimbursements for their commute to and from the Capitol.
Never mind that the Legislature is on an eight-week break. Not to be confused with an earlier month-long break.
Turns out Parker is collecting $119 a day — the per diem rate afforded lawmakers who live outside of Maricopa County at this extended point in the session — rather than the $10 a day she would have collected if she’d continued living at her previous residence in Maricopa County.
Parker declined to comment through her secretary, directing me instead to House spokesman Andrew Wilder, who assures me that nothing nefarious happened here.
“She filed with the House a formal statement of her new residence and mileage on December 1, 2022, more than a month before the session began, and was in full compliance with House rules,” Wilder said. “That form is what the House uses to calculate per diem and mileage reimbursement.”
Plus her mileage, which taxpayers also pay
It’s unclear when, exactly, she moved.
Rosenblatt reports she didn’t move her voter registration until May 31, and she’s listed as a precinct committee member in Mesa in Maricopa County records dated May 5.
Whatever the reason for her move to Pinal County, the payoff is obvious.
In all, records show that Parker has collected $35,462 in daily expense pay as of June 23, with the amount rising by another $119 a day, seven days a week, while the Legislature vacations.
(For the first 120 days of the session, lawmakers who live outside Maricopa County are paid $238 a day, to cover the expense of having to reside temporarily in the Valley. It’s cut to $119 on Day 121. Maricopa County lawmakers, meanwhile, get $35 in per diem, cut to $10 a day on Day 121.)
We’re paying HOW MUCH: To cover lawmakers’ expenses?
Lest you point out the expense of her longer commute, don’t. We also pay for that.
Parker has been reimbursed $6,536 as of June 23, based on her report that she has driven 10,012 miles between her Pinal County home and the Capitol through June 23.
Add in her $24,000 salary, and she’s making bank — $66,000 as of June 23 and the cash register keeps ‘aringing.
Arizona’s per diem law is broken
It’s a nice trick if you can pull it off, and by law, she absolutely can.
Isn’t it nice to know that one of our leaders could move just 18 miles down the road and proceed to cash in, to the tune of $238 — or now $119 a day — seven days a week, courtesy of us? Even while on vacation?
Rep. Parker, I bow to your keen financial acumen.
Of course, the Parker ka-ching machine is Exhibit A for why the Legislature should derail the per diem gravy train and tighten the law. (Not that it’ll ever happen.)
Simply put: A legislator shouldn’t be paid to cover non-existent expenses.
If you aren’t forced by distance to temporarily relocate to the Valley, why are we paying your rent?
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona lawmaker moves 18 miles, gets massive per diem pay boost
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