DES MOINES -- Voters who will see their local lawmaker at their doorstep this summer seeking re-election should ask him or her one question: What have you done to deserve your raise?

Lawmakers voted last session to give members of the Legislature a 17 percent pay raise. But the trick is, it doesn't go into effect until next year.

That allowed most lawmakers to say they hadn't directly voted to fatten their own paychecks, just the paycheck of some future nameless lawmaker, or if they're seeking re-election, themselves.

It's interesting to wonder whether they would have had the guts to take that vote this year in the wake of a salary scandal at a local job training agency where executives were helping themselves to salaries and bonuses that topped $360,000 a year.

Or whether Gov. Tom Vilsack would have signed a bill that raised the next governor's annual salary from $107,000 to $130,000.

At least they all had good timing.

They'll soon make $25,000 a year for a four-months-out-of-the-year job, up from the current $21,381.

And they'll now have $105 a day to live it up in Des Moines instead of an $86 per diem to pay for living expenses.

Legislators argue that they earn their salaries. They travel across the state, spend long evenings in debates, hold weekend forums in their districts and take after hours calls from constituents.

But for a group that's been focused so closely on results, results, results, for teachers and every government agency, it appears lawmakers have a dismal record of their own to take out on the campaign trail this fall.

They spent a major part of the session haggling over TouchPlay gambling machines, a debacle that never would have occurred if they'd been paying attention in the first place.

Now the most interesting thing going on at the Capitol is the hearings on the salary scandal at the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium. But it's uncertain why the Legislature is convinced it has to get to the bottom of it.

A slew of law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are already looking under every rock.

Let's just say the CIETC folks are more scared about the prospect of an indictment being handed down than whether they'll have to testify before a group of lawmakers that has so far been too timid to ask tough questions.

Those high profile issues aside, legislators have a lot riding on the closing days of the session. They'll need to tell voters what they did to improve pay for public school teachers, whose salaries have slipped to 41st in the nation.

And they'll have to say what they've done to reduce the tax burden not just for seniors and rich retirees, but the rest of the state as well.

If they can't redeem themselves in the coming weeks, tell them they should give their raises back.

Rep. Don Shoultz is hopping mad at someone, but he's not sure whom.

The Waterloo Democrat came home to an answering machine with complaints from constituents, all of whom apparently received automated calls criticizing Shoultz.

Shoultz took his complaints to the House floor for two days last week. He urged whoever was responsible for the calls to step forward, but no one did.

The woman running against Shoultz this fall, Republican Tami Wiencek, said she had nothing to do with the calls and didn't know who had sponsored them.

It turns out Shoultz is one of a handful of Democrats who is a target of the automated "robocalls."

They're criticizing Democrats for voting against a health care provision that would have allowed small businesses to pool together to buy cheaper health insurance for their employees.

Ironically though, it was House Republicans who failed to muster enough votes to get the bill passed.

So far no one has been able to peg exactly who is behind the calls. And the fact they're being made before lawmakers have even adjourned for the year signals an unusually early start to campaign season.

Charlotte Eby is a reporter in Lee Enterprises Des Moines bureau. Her e-mail is chareby@aol.com.