Senator Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, has introduced a Senate concurrent resolution asking for legislators to voluntarily reduce their per diems–the $159 per day that they’re allotted for food and lodging during the session. New Mexico’s legislators are otherwise unpaid.

Papen calls for a ten percent reduction in the per diem, which would bring the amount to about $143 per day. The per diem went up from $145 on October 1 in relation to federal standards.

Papen’s legislation asks that legislators in both chambers “voluntarily reduce their per diem reimbursement by a minimum of ten percent for the remainder of the forty-ninth legislature.”

The per diem reduction would need to be voluntary because, as Papen notes in the resolution, “the rate of per diem reimbursement for legislators is set in the constitution of New Mexico.”

The relevant section of the New Mexico constitution, (Article IV, section 10, paragraph A) says:

per diem at the internal revenue service per diem rate for the city of Santa Fe for each day’s attendance during each session of the legislature and the internal revenue service standard mileage rate for each mile traveled in going to and returning from the seat of government by the usual traveled route, once each session

Legislators don’t get paid for their work in the state legislature and the per diems are designed to offset food and board for the legislators.