MONTGOMERY - Rep. Mike Ball, R-Madison, says he if he gets enough support he may sponsor a proposed constitutional amendment in the 2012 legislative session that would allow voters to decide the issue of lawmakers' pay.

Ball would link legislative pay to the median income of Alabama households - now half of households make less than $43,000 a year - and set reimbursement for mileage, food and lodging at federal government rates for its employees.

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate scoffed at the plan, saying Republicans are simply deflecting their 2010 campaign promises to repeal the 2007 legislative pay raises that provoked voters.

"All they're trying to do is to put a red herring out there to dodge what they promised to do," said Sen. Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, Senate minority leader. "We should take a straight up and down vote to repeal it."

Many first-time Republican candidates used the pay raise issue to win election in 2010 when the GOP took control of the Legislature for the first time in 136 years.

But Republican leaders have said the issue was not part of their "Handshake with Alabama," the party's 2011 legislative agenda.

Legislative salaries in Alabama became a hot-button issue since when legislators, on a voice vote, approved a 61 percent raise for themselves. Then-Gov. Bob Riley vetoed the plan, but the Democratically-controlled Legislature, with help from some Republicans, easily overrode his veto.

In addition to raising legislators' pay from $30,710 to $49,500, the 2007 legislation also required the $3,850 fixed monthly expense to be adjusted annually, based on the U.S. Department of Labor's Consumer Price Index. Those adjustments have pushed pay for a typical lawmaker to about $53,400. Actually, the state constitution in 1901 set lawmakers' pay at only $10 a day. To get around that, legislators over the years have increased their monthly expense payments.

Ball said a constitutional amendment to take the pay issue out of the hands of the Legislature and tie it to the median income of Alabama households would be more equitable.

"If the people of Alabama prospered, we'd prosper," he said. "If they did not, we also would not. It would also assure that what happened in 2007 never happened again."

Republican House Speaker Mike Hubbard said he liked the concept of Ball's proposal, although he added he was unclear why expenses should be tied to what the federal government pays as opposed to state reimbursement.

In Louisiana, the mileage and daily meal and lodging allowance for lawmakers is tied by law to the rates the federal government pays its employees for their on-the-road expenses.

Federal employees are reimbursed 55 cents per mile, with a per diem of $77 for those working in the Montgomery area.

Sen. Del Marsh, R-Anniston, president pro tem of the Senate, said he had no problem with a constitutional amendment that would allow Alabama voters to decide the issue.

Marsh said he had supported a failed bill in the 2011 session by Sen. Phil Williams, R-Rainbow City, that proposed a constitutional amendment to create a six-member Legislative Compensation Commission.

Williams' bill, which died in a Senate committee, would have created a panel to recommend salary and expenses every four years and assure that pay couldn't be altered during that period. The panel would have been appointed by legislative leaders.

"I would love to see it resolved," said Marsh. "Good people have different opinions, based on when they were elected. It's something that keeps cropping up."

Marsh said he would like to see the Legislature act on a proposal early in the 2012 session.

Rep. Craig Ford, D-Gadsden, House Minority Leader, said the issue will ultimately be resolved by Republicans because they hold super majorities in the House and Senate.

Ford said he would support an independent, non-political pay commission whose members were from across the state.

Under the current system, he said, it's unfair for a legislator who lives in Muscle Shoals, for example, to be compensated at the same rate as one who lives in Montgomery who has little in the way of expenses.

In April, three-fourths of the members of the House and Senate asked for a pay cut or refused to take a scheduled cost-of-living raise in response to critics who say they hadn't done anything to repeal the 2007 raise. Hubbard and Marsh have never taken any pay raises.

According to legislative records, Ball did not take the cost-of-living raise this year, and he rolled back his pay by 15 percent to coincide with proration in the General Fund ordered by Gov. Robert Bentley.

None of the 12 Democrats in the Senate took the 15 percent pay cut. Eight of 22 Republican senators took the cut through the end of the fiscal year, which will end Sept. 30. They were Slade Blackwell of Mountain Brook, Jimmy Holley of Elba, Arthur Orr of Decatur, Trip Pittman of Daphne, Greg Reed of Jasper, J.T. Waggoner of Vestavia Hills, Cam Ward of Alabaster and Tom Whatley of Opelika.

According to records provided by the House Accounting Office, six of the 39 Democratic members took the 15 percent cut. They were Richard Lindsey of Centre; Thad McClammy of Montgomery, Pebblin Warren of Tuskegee, Marcel Black of Tuscumbia, Alvin Holmes of Montgomery and Joe Hubbard of Montgomery.

Only eight of 65 GOP House members did not roll back their pay at least 15 percent. They were Alan Baker of Brewton, Daniel Boman of Sulligent (who later switched to the Democratic Party), Alan Boothe of Troy, Mac Buttram of Cullman, Paul DeMarco (who accepted a reduction of $2,280), the late Owen Drake of Leeds, Todd Greeson of Ider, Mike Jones of Andalusia, Jeremy Oden of Eva and Elwyn Thomas of Oneonta.

In the Senate, 13 Republicans declined the inflation adjustment, as did all 65 Republicans in the House. Five Democrats in the Senate declined that raise, and 20 Democrats in the House turned it down.