Pay a legislator more and what do you get?

A full-time legislature that can’t get anything done.

That’s one of the interesting observations of an Illinois study, which noted that states with the highest-paid legislators seem to have the biggest problems.

California’s average legislative salary of $95,291 is tops in the U.S., even before a $162 per-diem rate for living expenses.

For all that money, the state has one of the most bitterly divided and dysfunctional legislatures in the land.

Michigan is next on the list at an average of $79,650, a pretty good living in a state where it’s getting harder and harder to make a decent living, and where the legislature will be facing at least a $2 billion budget deficit in 2011.

New York legislators are notoriously corrupt, despite their $79,500 salaries. Ditto that for Illinois, which has the fourth-highest-paid legislators in the U.S.: a $57,619 average.

Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey round out the list, all states with massive budget deficits.

The Illinois Policy Institute study observed that the states with high pay also have full-time, rather than part-time, legislatures.

Rather than having more time to solve problems, meeting year-round may leave those legislatures more time to create them.

They also face less pressure to get their work done quickly, with no end-of-session deadline looming.

New York and Pennsylvania regularly produce budgets that are months overdue.

The Illinois Policy Institute has advised that state to cut its legislative salaries.

Of course, it could be that really big states are just really hard to manage, although two big Sunbelt states, Florida (with its $30,996 average annual salary for legislators) and Texas ($7,200), seem to be coming through the recession better than their counterparts.

Maine legislators may look like cheap dates in comparison to some ($12,713), but they are also in session only three to five months a year.

If annualized, that would be about $50,000 a year, which certainly sounds like less of a savings.

Perhaps the biggest legislative bargain in the land is New Hampshire, where legislators receive $200 for a two-year term and no per diem for expenses.

That’s pretty good government, and at a bargain-basement rate.