The Thicket at State Legislatures

For Redistricting Geeks

by Karl Kurtz

In case you haven't found the full text of the Supreme Court's decision in the Texas redistricting case online, we'll provide you with the link.  Peter Wattson, the Minnesota Senate's legislative attorney/guru who tracks redistricting law has posted a summary of the case that is more palatable for the casual reader and puts it in the context of other redistricting decisions in the 2000's.

And my colleague Tim Storey, who is traveling this week and would otherwise be blogging on this subject, is quoted in yesterday's New York Times on the potential impact of the decision on other states.

Top 10 States for Legislators in the Schools

by Jan Goehring

The America's Legislators Back to School Program, part of NCSL's Trust for Representative Democracy, is the nation's largest civics lesson. It encourages elected officials in all 50 states to meet personally with students and brings civics to life for them. They answer questions from the students, share ideas, listen to concerns and impart a greater understanding of the legislative process and ideals of American democracy.

During the 2005 - 2006 school year, more than 1,400 legislators participated, reaching over 375,000 students. Utah had the strongest involvement in the program with 81 percent of the legislature participating. The Connecticut Senate supported the program in a big way with 92 percent of the chamber participating.

The top ten states, by percentage of the legislature participating, are:

TANF Regs: A Big Step Backwards (and a Red Herring)

by Carl Tubbesing

Sometime today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will release the regulations it has developed to implement the newly-revised Temporary Assistance for Needy Families law. In the lead-up to the publication of the regulations, HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and Wade Horn, head of the Children and Families agency in HHS, have made it clear that the regulations, like the new law passed last December, will put more control over the nation’s welfare programs in the unsteady hands of the federal government and drastically restrict the flexibility that state legislatures attained when TANF first became law in 1996.

In a transparent attempt to put legislators and governors on the defensive, Secretary Leavitt, usually known as a staunch advocate for state authority, and Mr. Horn have hammered on a message point worthy of a well-run presidential campaign. Some states, they are saying in speeches and interviews, are allowing bed rest as a work activity.

Can you say "red herring?" This campaign to justify stricter definitions and tougher rules trivializes one of the most successful joint state-federal programs in the country’s history. Borrowing from several successful state initiatives, the 1996 TANF law fundamentally changed the philosophy of welfare in the United States-by focusing on moving welfare recipients into jobs. It also altered the philosophy of how the federal and state governments relate to one another-by giving state legislators the flexibility to design work and other welfare programs in ways that they felt best met the unique needs of each state.

Redistrict at Will

by Karl Kurtz

The Supreme Court today upheld most of the Texas Legislature's mid-decade redistricting plan that resulted in a substantial gain of Republican seats.  They struck down only a portion of the law dealing with the Voting Rights Act, ruling that Hispanic voters had been denied the right to elect a candidate of their choosing in two districts.

The court explicitly said that legislatures can change congressional district boundaries at any time, not just in the constitutionally required period after each decennial census.  Will this lead to more frequent redistricting in the states?  I doubt it.  I agree with Loyola University's Richard Hasen, who is quoted in the Washington Post story linked to above as saying, "Some people are predicting a rash of mid-decade redistricting. I am skeptical.  It would be seen as a power grab in a lot of places."

Down to the Wire on State Budgets

by Karl Kurtz

This Saturday marks the beginning of Fiscal Year 2007 for most states.  Will all of them have enacted budgets for the new year by then? Here's a rundown and links to stories on the states that are coming down to the wire.

In the last 10 days, budgets were passed, or at least deals reached, by legislatures in Arizona, New York, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Virginia.  Oklahoma and Virginia acted in special sessions that had to be called because of budget impasses in regular sessions earlier in the year.

Democrats and Republicans in the California Legislature announced just today that they have reached an agreement.  If the deal holds, they plan to vote by July 1.  Delaware and Pennsylvania are on track to complete their budgets this week.  In North Carolina, which has sometimes missed the July 1 deadline in recent years, lawmakers are hammering out a final deal and hope to be finshed by Friday. 

We couldn't find any newspaper stories to link to in Massachusetts, but the budget is in conference committee and is expected to be completed this week.  In Michigan, where the new fiscal year doesn't begin until Oct. 1, our contacts are optimistic about finishing the budget by the fourth of July.

New Jersey is another story. Facing a budget gap of $4.5 billion--the worst budget crisis of any state--legislators are at odds over a sales tax increase.  According to insiders, the governor is threatening a budget shutdown if the budget isn't passed by July 1.  Stay tuned on this one.

Thanks to my colleague Corina Eckl for help in compiling this information.  Have we missed any other states where budgets have not yet been enacted?  Let us know.

The Email Management Puzzle

by Pam Greenberg

More than 100 nonprofit and advocacy groups are calling on members of Congress to avoid using technology that blocks messages from mass email campaigns.  Many advocacy groups offer a Web site form where users can add their names to an email message that is routed through the organization's servers to the users' representative in Congress.

The email management technology, called "Logic Puzzle," is an optional feature that members of Congress can implement in conjunction with a  "Write Your Representative" web site email form.  It requires a person to answer a randomly-generated question, such as "What is five minus one?," before the email can be sent. 

Who Runs the Legislature

by Karl Kurtz

In a post a few weeks ago, Some Days You Wish for a King, I promised more "outtakes" from a forthcoming (July-August) State Legislatures magazine article on legislative staff based on a national survey of staff.

One of the questions we asked was, on a scale of 1-no influence to 7-dictates policy, "What do you think is the relative influence of the following participants in the legislative process in determining legislative outcomes in your state?"  Of the 11 choices that we gave our 1,522 respondents to the survey, majority party leadership ranked far and away the highest with a score of 5.9.

Also scoring 5 or more were the senate (5.2), the house (5.1), the governor (5.0) and committee chairs (5.0).  These four scores are so close that they can be considered to be equal.

"Fluff" Makes News in Mass. and Beyond

by Nicole Moore

Massachusetts, which made headlines earlier this year with its universal health care program, is in the news again with another health-related issue. This one centers on Marshmallow Fluff.

State Senator Jarrett T. Barrios' son apparently started what the Boston Globe is calling "the war on Fluffernutter" when he requested that it be added to the family's grocery list after he was served a peanut butter and Fluff sandwich (known in those parts as a Fluffernutter) for lunch at his elementary school. Senator Barrios did some research, found out that the sandwiches are offered at the school daily, and on Monday proposed an amendment to a school nutrition bill that would allow them on lunch menus only once a week, the Boston Globe reports. 

Now, Representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein has answered with a proposal to make the Fluffernutter the state's official sandwich. "We grew up on Fluff," she told the Associated Press. The spread was invented in 1917 in Massachusetts.

Blog Power

by Karl Kurtz

Today's Cleveland Plain Dealer has an interesting story on how Blogs Reshape Ohio Politics, News Reports.  This story basically supports another one from yesterday's Detroit Free Press, Power of Blogs on Rise in Politics, in which George Washington University professor Michael Cornfield is quoted as saying, "Political blogs are the agenda setters for the agenda setters."

A Bold Newsroom Experiment

by Gene Rose

A bold media experiment is taking place in Spokane, Wash., that deserves the attention of policy wonks, the media, legislatures and public affairs staff.  On Wednesday, the Spokesman-Review began broadcasting its twice-daily editorial meetings over the Internet. In a world where the public -- and indeed legislatures -- are often in the dark on how decisions are made on what stories newspapers cover and feature, this is an eye-popping, jaw-dropping moment.