It would take some convincing to sell most Kansans on the idea of a full-time Legislature, or even a move in that direction.

An Associated Press story published in Monday’s Journal-World indicated that some Kansas legislators are looking at extending the session primarily as a way to trim the state budget. Considering the cost of paying legislators and staff for longer periods each year, that seems counterintuitive, but they say if they had more time to dig into the state budget, they would be able to better control increases in state government spending.

That’s a laudable goal, but our experience with the U.S. Congress seems to indicate that having a body of full-time lawmakers doesn’t necessarily make for more thrift in government. In fact, it appears to be just the opposite.

Despite having the full-time attention of Congress, the federal bureaucracy continues to grow. A year-round Congress – give or take a few dozen holidays – just seems to give lawmakers more opportunities to dream up new ways to spend taxpayer money.

We also wonder how long it would take the Kansas Legislature to resolve many issues if it didn’t face its annual adjournment deadline. Although the legislative session starts in January, it always seems that lawmakers don’t get much done until March and invariably leave many major issues on the table until their “wrapup” session. Some of the actions taken in the closing days of the session may be hasty and require correction the next year, but without that deadline, one wonders how many issues would just cycle from one year to the next without meaningful action.

The AP story cited a ranking by the National Conference of State Legislatures that puts state legislatures into categories based on which ones were best paid and put in the most time on their jobs. The 11 states at the top of the list had lawmakers who spend at least 80 percent of their time on the legislature and make large enough salaries that they didn’t need to hold outside jobs. Predictably, most of those states were among the nation’s largest, with a workload that may justify their extended roles.

Kansas was among the bottom 17 states with lower paid “citizen” legislators who spend about half their time on the elected jobs and, naturally, get paid less.

Legislators in the 22 states in the middle category seemed to be in the worst position, saying they spent two-thirds of their time on lawmaking but didn’t make enough to be able to live on that salary. There aren’t that many jobs that provide the flexibility to work just one-third of the time.

Kansas legislators work hard on behalf of their constituents, and it’s true that many Kansans have jobs that make it difficult for them to seek election and serve in the state’s part-time Legislature. Maybe a full-time Legislature would attract a more qualified or well-motivated group of candidates, but there’s no guarantee that a full-time Legislature would provide a significantly better service to the state than the current 90-day session, paired with various committees that meet throughout the year.

Many Kansans probably would say legislators spend too much time bickering and playing politics already. Why give them more opportunity?