In the three months since Jefferson County residents voted to cap county employees’ salaries at $70,000, the matter has gone from hot political topic to something that is hardly a blip on the radar screen. So much so that even if legal experts were not saying the measure violates state law, the county commission should let it die a quiet death.

The measure, the handiwork of former county commission candidate Vern Bowers and a pair of others, was approved last spring by a 500-vote margin, a substantial edge in the small rural county. The vote came despite Bowers’ attempts to distance himself from the proposal, and despite his own loss at the polls.

At the time it appeared that the cap was aimed at then-County Administrator Mike Morgan. Morgan knew what was going on: He took a job with the city of Madras, leaving the top county post vacant.

Now the county must hire a new administrator, a position it has advertised as having a salary ranging from just over $64,000 to just over $94,000. It may well find someone at the low end of the scale, but given the issues facing Jefferson County in the next few years – everything from the construction of a new prison to the growth that surely will accompany it – it might not. The county commission must be able to offer a salary on a par with similar positions in the region, and the cap could well make that impossible.

Given that need, the clear lack of demand that the cap be put in place and its own shaky legality, commissioners may well chose to ignore the cap. They’ve already decided not to take it to court to have it overturned, though that could change if a legal challenge arose. Instead, they will seek public comment on the cap next week, then perhaps simply ignore it and do what must be done to keep the county running smoothly. A quiet death, then, may well be what’s in store for what was a thoroughly bad idea in the first place.