Chapter 6State Legislatures

The Essence of LegislaturesLegislative DynamicsLegislative BehaviorHow a Bill Becomes a Law (or Not)Legislative Reform and CapacityRelationship with the Executive BranchLegislatures and Capacity

The Essence of Legislatures

Legislatures engage in three principal functions:PolicymakingRepresentationOversight

Policymaking includes enacting laws and allocating funds.

Representation occurs when legislators represent their constituents.

Oversight involves paying attention to the performance of the state bureaucracy.

Popular Legislative Issues in 2008

The Senate and the House

State legislatures have two houses or chambers, just as those of the U.S. Congress.

Bicameralism is the division of Congress into the two chambers. Historically, the upper chamber (Senate) represented the interests of the propertied class, and the lower chamber (the House) represented everyone else.

Forty-nine of the fifty states have a bicameral legislature.

There are 7,382 state legislators in the country; 1,971 senators and 5,411 representatives.

Legislative Districts

Legislators are elected from geographically based districts with each district in a state containing approximately the same number of inhabitants.

Malapportionment occurs with unequal representation that violates the ‘one person, one vote’ ideal.

Redistricting is the redrawing of legislative district lines to conform to the ‘one person, one vote’ ideal.

Gerrymandering occurs when a legislative district is creatively designed to enhance the electoral fortunes of the party in power.

The Committee System

The legislature is composed of many committees.

The function of a committee is to consider bills by the process of hearing testimony, amending the bills, and ultimately approving or rejecting them.

Most committees have subcommittees:Standing CommitteesJoint CommitteesConference CommitteesInterim Committees

Standing Committees of the Legislature

Legislative Behavior

Legislatures are self-regulating institutions.

An understanding of the legislature involves knowledge of formal structures and written rules in addition to informal norms and unwritten policies.

Compromises are the backbone of the legislative process. Very rarely does a bill reach the governor in exactly the same form as when it was introduced.

How a Bill Becomes Law

Legislative Reform and Capacity

The Citizens’ Conference on State Legislatures (CCSL) identified five characteristics critical to legislative improvement.

Ideally, a legislature should be FAIIR:FunctionalAccountableInformedIndependentRepresentative

The Effects of Reform

Originally, legislators were citizen-legislators who served in the legislature as a part-time endeavor.

Since legislative reform began, more legislators are full-time legislators, while the amount of legislators who hold other jobs has dropped significantly.

State legislatures are becoming more like the U.S. Congress where legislators stay in their positions (as long as they are re-elected).

Legislative Professionalism

Term Limits

Some states have placed limits on legislative terms. Most of these states will limit the terms in each chamber separately.

Term limits were expected to:End the domination of a chamber full of veteran legislatorsIncrease the proportion of first-term legislatorsIncrease representation by groups underrepresented in the

legislatureShift power from the legislature to the governor and lobbyists.

Three of the four expectations have been met. Greater representation by underrepresented groups has not been seen yet.

Term Limits

Relationship with the Executive Branch

Tension is inevitable between a state’s legislative and executive branches because both branches think that they know what is best for the state.

Governors have a media advantage over the legislature because he/she is a visible symbol of state government.

The legislature tends to be portrayed as being involved with pork-barrel politics and deal making.

Overseeing the Bureaucracy

Legislative oversight involves four activities:

1. Policy and program evaluation – legislatures select auditors to evaluate the performance of state programs.

2. Legislative review of administrative rules and regulations – this is a mechanism whereby administrative abuses can be corrected. Review functions can be assigned to specific committees or to a specific legislative agency.

Overseeing the Bureaucracy

3. Sunset legislation – half the states have established sunset laws that set automatic expiration dates for specified agencies and other organizational structures in the executive branch. An agency can be saved from termination only be renewal action of the legislature.

4. Review and control of federal funds – if legislatures are to capably forecast state priorities then some control of federal funds is necessary. Federal fund disbursement is now part of the appropriations process.

Legislatures and Capacity

The ability of state legislatures to function effectively depends on institutional capacity.

Structural reforms and a different type of legislator have altered state legislatures and redirected them towards increased capacity.