11:36 a.m. - BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- North Dakota's House voted to raise the Legislature's session pay to $945 weekly, with supporters arguing the increase is needed to encourage potential lawmakers to interrupt their working lives to run for office.

"I think when we make it a policy to underpay ourselves so we look good to the public, we limit this chamber to people of a certain amount of means," said Rep. Duane DeKrey, R-Pettibone. "I don't think that's right."

The increase does not take effect until Dec. 1, 2006, shortly before the next Legislature will hold its organizational session. The House has approved a separate bill to raise legislators' housing allowance during the Legislature from $650 to $900 monthly, which is retroactive to Jan. 1.

Critics of the session pay raise said they could not support it when the Legislature's final compensation plans for state employees, public school teachers and other service providers remain unsettled.

"There is no vacancy … in this chamber. Every chair is filled," said Rep. Lee Kaldor, D-Mayville. On the other hand, workers who provide aid to developmentally disabled North Dakotans are hard to find, he said.

The Legislature provides money for those workers' salaries, and their pay "can't compete with McDonald's," Kaldor said. "I want us to think about that. I think that's an inequity, and an injustice."

The pay rise is included in the budget bill for the Legislative Council, which is the Legislature's research agency. Representatives voted 70-20 on Thursday to approve the measure and send it to the Senate for additional review.

Both the pay boost and the increase in legislators' housing allowance are expected to end up in a House-Senate conference committee, where three senators and three House members work out differences in legislation. The Senate already has refused to agree to the terms of the housing allowance increase.

North Dakota lawmakers are now paid $125 a day, seven days a week, while the Legislature is in session. The bill approved Thursday would raise that to $135 daily. The numbers equal an increase in weekly compensation from $875 to $945, an 8 percent boost.

Lawmakers also get a $250 monthly payment while they are serving, whether or not the Legislature is in session. The bill leaves that payment undisturbed.

The vote Thursday came after two days of House turmoil about how the legislation to raise lawmakers' pay was handled.

The compensation proposal was included in amendments to the Legislative Council's budget bill, which were approved Tuesday without debate. Afterward, some Republican members of the GOP-controlled House said they hadn't known of the amendments, a complaint that prompted some public derision.

Rep. Rick Berg, R-Fargo, the House majority leader, and his Democratic counterpart, Merle Boucher, D-Rolette, both supported the pay increase. Before the vote, Boucher asked that the vote be delayed until the end of the Legislature, a suggestion the House rejected.

"I think it's very critical that we provide a compensation package that is attractive, to bring the best people we can possibly bring to this assembly," Boucher said.

Rep. Mike Timm, R-Minot, said legislators have had to take heat for raising their own salaries for years. If past lawmakers had ignored the issue, Timm said, "we'd all be sitting here today, getting compensation that would probably be equal to the Dark Ages."

"We don't have the governor plugging our pay raise, or our compensation, into the budget. We don't have anybody else to do it," Timm said. "We're the ones that have to do it." ------

The bill is SB2001.