The Thicket at State Legislatures

Baby Boomers Dominate in State Legislatures

by Morgan Cullen

Our analysis of state legislator ages in 2008 shows that 47.9% of legislators presently serve between the ages of 50-64 years of age. This age range accounts for nearly half of all legislators presently serving and is almost two times larger than any other age group.

There are many contributing factors to why a majority of legislators decide to run for elected office during this period of their lives. Candidates running for office from this age group have a broad range of professional experience making them more electable. Family responsibilities have often been significantly reduced since children are often fully grown. And the 50-64 age group is also the most financially stable, a benefit of many productive years in the workforce. According to US Census data, this age group only makes up 17.5% of the total US population which is significantly less than their representation in state legislatures.

Conversely, only 3.8% of legislators nationwide fall into the 20-34 year old category (and less than 1% are under 30 years of age). This is by far the lowest percentage of any other age group. There are several factors contributing to the low number of legislators serving in their 20s and early 30s but the most obvious is their lack of professional experience. Candidates seeking elected office during this period of their lives are at a competitive disadvantage to their older and more experienced opponents.

Budget Battle Games

by Meagan Dorsch

According to GameSpot.com, some of the most popular video games (we looked at the Wii system) are Real Heroes:Fire fighter, Call of Duty and Madden NFL 10.

We noticed one video game that did not make the list: Budget Battle-Star Galactica. OK, that may not be the correct name, but it is one of the toughest games on the market to win right now.

Several states, or newspapers, have have a hand in creating on-line games that allow you to become a legislator and take a crack at trying to balance the state's budget. For an even bigger challenge, try to play these games in a group. Remember, the majority of you have to agree on all of the decisions made.

In Texas, the decisions you make in the game are either supported or disagreed on by your virtual constituents. California budget battle game starts you off with $24 million deficit to close…good luck. Many of these budget games will allow you to submit your solutions directly to the state for consideration. 

Are these games easy? Not at all, which may help some in the general public realize the challenges state legislators are up against.  

According to NCSL's State Budget Update, states will to deal with budget shortfalls in the coming years. We may see more of these budget games popping up in states across the country.

Here is a list of states we know have set up budget battle games (please feel free to let us know about more), thanks to Arturo in NCSL's fiscal department. So go ahead, put your good ideas to work for your state.

California
Colorado
Illinois
Kansas
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Texas
Washington

The Beat Goes On ...

by Michelle Blackston

Many news organizations face a crossroads in their coverage of state legislatures. Some are eliminating statehouse reporters and relying on wire services while others are using online, social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to provide immediate updates of actions in the chambers.

And most appropriately, statehouse reporters from across the country are meeting in the Crossroads of America, otherwise known as Indiana, for the three-day Capitolbeat 2009 conference. The Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors holds this conference annually to discuss hot issues affecting state government news media.

Three NCSL policy analysts have joined in the discussion with the more than 135 reporters attending the conference. Corina Eckl, director of NCSL's fiscal affairs program, addressed the dire state fiscal situation and provided some context for current and past recession budget gaps. NCSL's federal affairs counsel Neal Osten shared insights on the ongoing legislatives efforts to achieve state sales tax fairness that would close a tax loophole. And Tim Storey, a senior fellow with NCSL's legislative management program, discussed the upcoming redistricting cycle. All three sessions were standing-room only.

According to Eckl, the reporters who attended her panel discussion recognize the importance of reporting the state budget situation and that it's not going to be easily remedied.

Osten's panel discussion on online sales tax collection brought to the forefront some of the ways in which states are dealing with their current budget situations -- raising taxes. Reporters asked about increases in so-called "sin taxes" of alcohol and tobacco, which several states have discussed as potential solutions to budget shortfalls. However, there remains a loophole on uncollected sales taxes for online retailers. While not a new tax, altogether states could collect as much as $7.5 billion annually from online sellers. Many reporters took copious notes on this fact.

Storey, NCSL's policy expert on elections and redistricting, polled the crowd about their level of enthusiasm in covering the upcoming redistricting process. Only one reporter was happy to be covering it, many were ambivalent about it and one was outright terrified of the prospect of covering the often-contentious challenge of redistricting. Still, Storey kept the group laughing, which is saying a lot considering there isn't much funny about redistricting.

Other highlights of the two-day conference include a tour of the Indiana statehouse and a visit from Governor Mitch Daniels. The governor was on his way to the Indiana state fair and arrived riding on a motorcycle.

The bulk of the conference focuses on issues such as the federal stimulus package and health care reform, with other topics focusing on the ways in which the news business can stay afloat in the changing media environment. Still, this group of capitol reporters stressed that although their ranks are dwindling, the current economic recession makes what they do more important than ever.

"These are a group of sophisticated reporters who understand the nuances of state budgets," Eckl said. Reporters are trying to find new and creative ways to cover budget situations in the states, just as legislatures are trying find new and creative ways to bridge budget gaps.

Legislator-Constituent Relations in Algeria and the United States

by Karl Kurtz

Most of the differences between the Algerian National Parliament and American legislatures are structural and result in somewhat weaker connections between legislators and their constituents in Algeria compared to the United States.  But the manner in which parliamentarians from both countries communicate with their public is remarkably similar. 

This was the conclusion of a team of 5 American legislators and staff and 2 NCSL staff that conducted a workshop for Algerian parliamentarians in Algiers earlier this summer.  Here are the key structural differences between the two countries' legislative systems:

• The overwhelming majority of American lawmakers are elected from single member districts, but Algerian parliamentarians are elected at large from party lists in multi-member districts in each of 26 regions of the country.  Both multi-member districts and party lists tend to weaken connections between legislators and constituents because elections depend more on the fortunes of the party than on the performance of individual legislators.  The one-to-one relationship of legislator to district in a single member district system encourages effective constituent communication.
• American parties are relatively weak and lacking in cohesion compared to stronger, more cohesive parties in Algeria.  In a weak party system, there is likely to be more of a personal vote for legislators and more incentive to work hard at constituent service as a result.
• In the United States, legislatures are designed to be independent and coequal branches of government, able to balance the power of executives.  In Algeria, the executive branch dominates the legislative branch, so the public is more likely to turn to the executive to solve problems than to the parliament.  Algerian parliamentarians still play an important role as ombudsmen for the public but not to the same extent as in the United States.
• Americans--and American legislators--have far more access to the Internet and other electronic resources than do Algerians.  80 percent of Algerians have cell phones, but very few of them have easy access to computers and the Internet.  The factors that have facilitated increased electronic communication between legislators and constituents in the United States are largely absent in Algeria.
• In America we have a 272 year history of independence and a stable constitution; Algeria has 40 years of history as an independent country.

Boondoggle: An Innocent Humble Craft

by Karl Kurtz

In "One Person's Boondoggle, Another's Necessity," the New York Times' Michael Cooper explains the derivation of a term that now connotes wasteful governmental projects:

Before it became a bad word, “boondoggle” was an innocent, humble craft. It was the Boy Scouts of America who claimed credit for coining the word, to refer to the plaited leather lanyards that they made and wore around their necks.

That all changed on April 3, 1935, at a hearing in New York City on how New Deal relief money was being spent. A Brooklyn crafts teacher reluctantly testified that he was paid to show the jobless how to make “boon doggles.” The outcry was swift. “$3,187,000 Relief is Spent to Teach Jobless to Play,” trumpeted a front-page headline the next day in The New York Times. “ ‘Boon Doggles’ Made.”

A new, more sinister meaning was born, and the word came to signify government make-work, later referring to wasteful government projects in general. Critics used it to criticize scores of projects, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt took a longer view. “If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this Depression,” Roosevelt said, “that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.”

William Safire's Political Dictionary says that H.L. Mencken is the one who tracked this term back to the Boy Scouts.  But Safire also offers an alternative derivation that was first reported to the New York Times in 1935 by a man who had told the city's Board of Aldermen that "he was paid for teaching 'boondoggles.'  Boon doggles is simply a terrm applied back in the pioneer days to what we call gadgets today...no, it is not named for Daniel Boone...it is spelled differently."

Whatever the origin of the phrase, Cooper's article nicely explains that government projects that are often derided from a distance--like current controversies over federal economic stimulus projects for an airport on an island in Alaska, a skateboard park in Rhode Island and tunnel for turtles in Florida--are viewed as popular and valuable in their local communities.  He delves into the history of some Depression-era WPA projects that were derided at the time but have had long and useful lives.

The article concludes:

Robert D. Leighninger Jr., a sociologist who wrote “Long-Range Public Investment: The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal” (South Carolina University Press, 2007), recounted the story of a Works Progress Administration official in Arizona who went off in search of boondoggles, and discovered that the towns he visited seemed to like their own projects but questioned those of their neighbors.

“I’ve been hunting all over the state for one, but everywhere I go I’m told it’s in the next county,” the official was quoted as saying in a 1936 newspaper article. “So far I haven’t been able to catch up with a real, live one.”

Democracy Building Lessons

by Karl Kurtz

"I'm a neoconservative who has been mugged by reality."  So says John Agresto, one of the most interesting characters in Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, about the misadventures of the American occupation of Iraq in the first year after the war.  Agresto is a former president of St. John's College in Santa Fe who was charged with the responsibility of rebuilding Iraq's higher education system.

Agresto wrote to a friend about his frustrations with democracy-building in Iraq (as quoted in Chandrasekaran's book):

The problem with democracy-building is that I think we think democracy is easy--get rid of the bad guys, call for elections, encourage “power-sharing,” and see to it somebody writes a bill of rights.  The truth is exactly the opposite--government by the few, or government by one person is what’s easy to build; even putting together good autocratic rule doesn’t seem to be that hard.  It’s good, stable and free democracies that are really the hardest thing.

America’s been so successful at being a free and permanent democracy that we think democracy is the natural way to rule--just let people go and there you have it: Democracy.  But all the ingredients that make it good and free--limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, calendared elections, staggered elections, plurality selection, differing terms of office, federalism but with national supremacy, the development of a civic spirit and civic responsibility, and, above all, the breaking and moderation of factions--all this we forget about.  We act as if the aim is “democracy” simply and not a mild and moderate democracy.  Therefore…we seek out the loudest and most virulent factions and empower them….

We, as a country, don’t have a clue as to what has made our own country work, and so we spread the gospel of democracy-at-all-costs abroad.  Until this country can find a Madison, it would be far better off with just a good ruler.

As someone who has dabbled in parliamentary strengthening in emerging democracies around the world (although obviously nothing on the scale of the problem of Iraq), I particularly like this reflection for two reasons. 

Social Media and Government

A top communications consultant, Val Marmillion, who has helped NCSL design its Trust for Representative Democracy, has some interesting things to say about social media and government on the blog, Our Blook. In the course of the interview, he gets in some nice plugs for the Trust and American Democracy Television.

Are Budget Challenges Affecting Public's Satisfaction with State Governments?

by Gene Rose

 The public's satisfaction of state governments dropped sharply from last year, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Fifty percent of the public holds a favorable opinion of state governments, while 44 find them unfavorable, according to citizens polled in July this year. This is sharp decline from the April 2008 survey, when the public held a 59 percent approval of state governments and 37 percent held an unfavorable view.

State fiscal conditions are inferred as a contributor to this sharp change. Using information from NCSL's July survey of state legislative fiscal officers, the research group noted:

"The balance of opinion regarding state governments has turned negative in states with the largest budget gaps – the size of the shortfall relative to the state’s overall budget. In the 12 states facing the largest budget gaps, 58% now have an unfavorable view of their state governments while only 38% have a favorable view. In April 2008, opinion was evenly divided in these states (48% favorable, 47% unfavorable)."

Interestingly, Americans views of the federal government appear to be shifting the other way. While half still hold an unfavorable opinion, 42 percent hold a favorable view. This is an improvement from the April 2008 numbers when only 37 percent were favorable and 58 percent were negative.

Local governments continue to have the best ratings of the three groups, with 60 percent being favorable and 32 percent unfavorable, both numbers down slightly from last year.

NCSL's Multimedia Page

by Meagan Dorsch

Were you not able to attend the National Conference of State Legislatures' (NCSL) Legislative Summit in Philadelphia? Was the agenda packed with too many great sessions that you had to miss one? Are you curious how state legislatures are using social media to communicate with constituents?

The answers to these questions and more are on-line and ready for you to use at NCSL's multimedia page. NCSL has made available (for free) the content from close to half of the sessions at its 35th annual Legislative Summit. This includes PowerPoint presentations, photos, as well as video/audio clips.

This multimedia page also includes video from the general sessions with prestigious speakers such as Bill Gates, Simon Johnson and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. 

This pageis a great way to review the content from NCSL's meeting, catch up on information you might have missed or learn about some of the toughest issues facing state legislators today.

Souter: Make Civic Education Real

by Jan Goehring

Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter challenged participants to make "civic education real again" during his remarks at the American Bar Association Annual Meeting. He cited data showing that few people know the three branches of government and expressed concern that citizens' lack of knowledge is a risk to our government. “Civic education must be raised to a new power,” he concluded.  It is “the birthright of every American.”  To view the speech, click here.

The Thicket often posts information about civic learning and engagement. Two recent posts provide examples of how civic education has been brought to life in Washington and Florida.