With a little time to kill while at the Capitol this week, I ventured outside for some fresh air.

As I strolled through the lot where lawmakers park, I was struck by the number of shiny late-model cars, lots of Lexae, Cadillac, Volvo, with telltale legislative license plates identifying the lawmaking drivers.

No one bought any of those cars only with a legislator's paycheck, I'm sure of it.

The only clunker I found, rusted and missing its Honda emblem, belongs to Rep. Patricia Dillon, who actually appeared suddenly next to me and asked about my interest in her car.

"175,000 miles, and 100 more to go, I'm sure," she said, with an inviting smile. "Who needs a fancy car?"

As we chatted in the warm March sun, the amiable Democratic New Haven lawmaker noted that she and other legislators have not had a raise since the towers fell in New York City.

I told her I think they deserve one, a big one.

Indeed, the dearth, with some exceptions, of quality new candidates running for General Assembly seats these days is proof that the system is horribly broken.

They are the most important government employees and they are woefully underpaid. The annual salary starts at $28,000 a year, with some meager bumps for leadership posts — of which there are countless — and expenses reimbursement.

Sen. Art Linares of Westbrook, a successful businessman, could not have bought his beautiful black Tesla with only his legislative pay, even if he saved up all of it for several years.

The General Assembly has become, to a great extent, a playground for the upper-middle class, where you may need either a high-earning spouse or a tolerant, influence-seeking employer, like a law firm, to let you indulge.

This is all based on the ridiculous conceit that they are part-timers, citizen legislators, who keep their day jobs and go up to Hartford occasionally to vote.

Maybe in the 19th century, farmer/lawmakers dropped their ploughs for the day and went up to tend to state business.

But we live in a more complicated world today. State government is broken. And we need to recruit the best and brightest to sign on to help fix it.

It also would help if our General Assembly better represented the state's citizenry.

I learned a little in recent weeks about how bad it's become in suggesting to people that they might be interested in running for the Senate seat being vacated by Andrew Maynard of Stonington.

They all looked at me like I have three heads.

Really, who wants to do that, work what amounts to a full-time job (if you are conscientious) at a paltry wage, all the while subjecting yourself to abuse by demanding constituents and critical newspaper columnists.

You greatly would widen the pool of applicants if you made it a real job that normal people, especially those with families to raise, could consider.

Look at our own delegation from eastern Connecticut. Linares and Sen. Paul Formica of East Lyme are able to serve because they have had business success. Sen. Cathy Osten also earns a salary as first selectwoman of Sprague and a pension for her service as a prison guard. With that kind of public money pipeline, all earned, of course, she doesn't need her Senate salary to put food on the table.

The Senate even has a Kennedy, representing the silver coast.

I know that Sen. Maynard has managed to simply live on less because serving in office meant so much to him. But the number of qualified people willing to commit that fully to selfless service are rare.

Republicans this week actually suggested a share-the-pain cut in their own pay, as they seek solutions to the financial crisis.

But of course it was only a symbolic gesture. The amount of money it would save would hardly amount to a single teardrop in the oceans of the state's red ink.

It also goes to show that a lot of them are not in office for the money at all, a worrisome idea.

At the same time, paying lawmakers a real salary would not cost that much, given the enormity of state spending. They could even make up a lot of it by cutting the size of the legislative support staff that generally coddles the legislators.

On my tour of the heavy metal in the lawmakers' parking lot this week, I was pleased to see a Republican plate on a gas-thrifty Toyota Prius.

Rep. Themis Klarides, the professionally accomplished House Republican Leader, a lawyer, also has a cute bumper sticker lament on her car: "I miss Reagan."

I think maybe Reagan would agree, you get what you pay for, especially with lawmaker salaries.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com