The Thicket at State Legislatures

Book Review: Fair, Balanced...and Dead

by Tim Hodson

There is a new addition to that small genre of mystery novels set in state capitols and involving legislatures.  Fair, Balanced …and Dead is the first novel by Steve Swatt, a long-time political reporter, now retired, for a Sacramento television station.    Swatt is following the path of John Feinstein (Running Mates) and Tony Hillerman (The Fly on the Wall) both of whom were political reporters whose early novels featured political reporters investigating murders.  In Swatt’s case, of course, the hero is a TV reporter confronting both deadly political games and a news industry increasingly disinterested and disdainful of political coverage.

A veteran U.S. Senator has died and the Republican Governor of California must select a replacement.  Various candidates emerge but the strongest are Johnny Callahan, the young charismatic Speaker of the state Assembly, whose conservatism is tempered by pragmatism and an acute awareness of being a Republican in a Democratic majority state, and Harold Barnes, an older legislator who is the champion of the right.

Allegations of a sex scandal involving the Speaker surface and TV reporter Jack Summerland is forced by a ratings-driven station to report the story.  The story proves to be untrue, embarrassing Summerland but allowing Callahan to appear the aggrieved victim.  More damaging stories follow leading Summerland to investigate the allegations, their source and a body found floating in the American River.  Dirty tricks by Barnes?  Machiavellian tactics by the Speaker’s staff?  Ancient grudges?  The work of a group of Southern California millionaires anxious to launch Callahan on a path to the White House?   

Fire Alarms and Police Patrols: Two Approaches to Legislative Oversight

by Karl Kurtz

American legislatures don't devote enough time or attention to legislative oversight. That's a nearly universal complaint about both Congress and state legislatures. Legislative surveillance and control of the executive branch is hard work, not very rewarding and not something that legislators can easily take credit for, say the critics by way of explanation for the neglect of this function.

But that's a one-dimensional view of legislative oversight, according to University of California Berkeley Professor Bruce Cain in testimony before California Assembly and Senate select committees on improving state government last week. Bruce was drawing on a distinction between police patrol oversight and fire alarm oversight, terms coined in the 1980s by political scientists Matthew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz.

Police patrol oversight, like its namesake, is the routine work of "patrolling" the executive branch looking for problems in program implementation. It is usually centralized in a legislature in an audit or program review committee with a staff agency that evaluates the performance of executive agencies. It relies on formal committee hearings on agency operations and on interim studies and reports on legislative performance. Police patrol oversight is usually initiated by the legislature and tends to be formal and systematic.

Fire alarm oversight of executive programs by legislatures occurs when interest groups complain about how programs are administered, the media expose programmatic waste or abuse, or constituents report problems with government services that reveal flaws in program design or implementation. It is highly decentralized, relies on outside actors to "sound an alarm", and is less than systematic.

Top Ten for Back to School Program

by Jan Goehring

Each summer, NCSL's Trust for Representative Democracy collects information about how many legislators participated in the America's Legislators Back to School Program the previous school year. The program encourages legislators to visit classrooms and bring civics to life for students all across the country. Each year an average of 1,200 state lawmakers are involved. The charts below show the top ten legislatures and chambers in 2008 - 09. Massachusetts and Utah tied for the state with the highest percentage of legislators participating. The Pennsylvania House and Louisiana and Massachusetts Senate chambers reached 100 percent involvement.

Top Ten Legislatures	Percentage
Utah & Massachusetts	94%
Virginia	91%
Pennsylvania	80%
Nebraska	71%
Alaska	60%
Hawaii	58%
New Jersey	57%
Mississippi	54%
Nevada	40%
Arizona	37%

Top Ten House	Top Ten Senate
Pennsylvania - 100%	Louisiana & Massachusetts - 100%
Utah & Massachusetts - 93%	Utah - 97%
Virginia - 91%	Virginia - 93%
New Jersey - 64%	Nebraska - 71%
Hawaii - 61%	Nevada - 57%
Kentucky - 35%	Hawaii - 52%
Nevada - 31%	New Jersey & New Mexico - 43%
Washington - 29%	Oklahoma - 40%
Maryland - 26%	Wyoming - 33%
Wyoming - 25%	Michigan - 26%

Town Hall Meetings: Building Trust Online

by Pam Greenberg

Participants in a series of online town hall meetings with members of Congress reported significantly improved trust, agreement, and satisfaction with government.  These online meetings, according to a new report by the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF)  and a team of academic partners, also found that Internet town hall meetings improved constituents’ approval ratings of members of Congress and increased their probability of voting for the member.   

CMF conducted most of the online town hall meetings with small groups of 15-25 constituents, but one with a group of nearly 200 constituents.  The sessions involved a moderator and a Member of Congress who spoke to constituents via Internet audio.  The constituents posed written questions in real time during the meetings. 

The sessions, conducted with a diverse group of citizens, resulted in hundreds of online questions contributing to high quality discussions about immigration and detainee policy issues. The sessions were extremely popular with constituents—96 percent said they would like to be included in similar events in the future. 

State lawmakers in Washington have held many online town hall meetings in recent years, and legislators in California and Virginia have also held internet or web dialogues with citizens. For another take, see "What's Going on with Town Hall Meetings?"

Photo credit: Eliot Kamenitz, The Times-Picayune archive in nola.com

"My bills were my babies. I loved them all"

by Karl Kurtz

In the middle of a day-long joint hearing by California's recently appointed Assembly and Senate select committees on improving state government, Bob Naylor, a former Assembly minority (Republican) leader, said, "This is the best prolonged discussion of the legislative process, in which members have stayed attentive, that I have ever seen in California."  Fifteen members were present for most of the day and asked challenging and interesting questions of a dozen or so panelists.

The most colorful, provocative and occasionally outrageous testimony was given by State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who was formerly attorney general and president pro tem of the Senate.  A few of his best one-liners:

• Referring to the cumbersome system of checks and balances in American democracy, he said, "We're part of a system that was designed not to work."  See Dan Walters in the Sacramento Bee.
• In relation to a proposal to allow committee chairs to decide which bills would be heard (California has a practice of hearing all bills), he said that he wouldn't want a committee chair to determine which of his bills were heard.  "My bills were my babies.  I loved all of them."
• "As someone who has served both in the legislative and executive branches, I can say that legislative oversight is often unfair to the executive."
• "Maybe we should have graduated limits on bill introductions. You know, first-term members could introduce just a few bills, second-term members a few more, and so on..."
• Referring to the inexperience problem in the Assembly created by term limits and evidence that Assembly committees stop far fewer bills than they did before term limits: "Two-thirds of the bills that come out of the Assembly should never see the light of day....  Stop it, stop it, stop it!  Nancy Reagan was right: You should just say no."

New Surveys Provide Snapshot of Legislators' Use of Social Media

by Pam Greenberg

Tracking the number of legislators using social media tools seems a daunting task.  NCSL's chart lists legislative caucuses and agencies using these sites, and Karl Kurtz has previously blogged about legislators who tweet.  Several recent surveys, however, are providing a bit more data about the popularity of these sites among lawmakers. 

More than half of Illinois Senators and close to half of House members are using the social media site Facebook, according to a recent detailed survey by Chicago public relations firm Kathy Schaeffer & Associates, Inc.  The detailed results show a smaller number using Twitter, YouTube, or LinkedIn, the business-oriented social networking site.

A survey earlier in 2009, by the Illinois Technology Partnership (ITP), asked Illinois legislators if they used any social networking sites.  About 20 percent responded, and of those, about 30 percent indicated they frequently use these sites, and about nineteen percent said they use them occasionally. Twenty-five percent indicated they did not use social media, but were interested to learn more, but another 25 percent said social networking does not interest them.

The Fiscal Outlook for Higher Education

by Brenda Bautsch

2009 was a tough year for states in terms of funding higher education, and 2010 does not look any better.

The recession has made fiscal conditions worse in the states, and while the federal stimulus funds have helped, states know that those funds will end soon. According to Joni Finney, Vice President on the National Center of Public Policy on Higher Education and a professor at practice at the University of Pennsylvania, most states do not have a plan for funding higher education in the long term.

In this edition of the Buzz, we sit down with Professor Finney to talk about hope for the future. Finney says it is going to take leadership to make sure that states have a plan to fund higher education in the long term. She also says thinking outside of the box might help states find a solution in these unprecedented times.

Listen to this podcast and our other podcasts on college completion rates with David Longanecker and federal policies and programs with the Deputy Under Secretary of Education.

Of Rituals, Swords and Cod: More Symbols of Authority

by Kae Warnock

We human beings carry out a significant portion of our lives on the basis of little rituals. Birthdays are celebrated with candles on the cake, toasts are offered at wedding receptions, and commencement ceremonies are held for graduations.  So it should come as no surprise that legislatures also observe rituals and use symbols to mark the beginning and the end of the legislative session.

The mace is probably the most common symbol in the Anglo-parliamentary world, but other legislative chambers have their own unique practices.

The South Carolina House sergeant-at-arms, dressed in a black suit and tie and wearing white gloves, removes the golden ceremonial mace from its glass-fronted vault and places it in a special rack on the front of the podium. Across the hall, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, similarly dressed, stands outside the chamber. In his right hand is the sword of state. The reading clerk bangs the gavel three times and announces “Members and guests will please rise as we receive our distinguished President”. The sergeant-at-arms carries the sword and leads the lieutenant governor (who is wearing a purple robe) to the front of the chamber. The sergeant at arms places the sword in its cradle on the Senate rostrum and large lamps light up on both ends of the desk.

The South Carolina sword of state is first mentioned in the 1704 Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina when it was purchased for the governor.  The original sword was stolen in 1941 and was never recovered. The current sword was presented to the Senate in 1941 as a personal gift from Lord Halifax, former British ambassador to the United States. To learn more about South Carolina's traditions, see "Seals, Flags, House and Senate Emblems."

Florida Civic Health

by Jan Goehring

The National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC) recently released a report about the civic health of Florida and there is room for improvement. Florida ranks 46th in the nation for overall civic life. The study, prepared by the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship, found that the state is 34th in average voter turnout; 49th in the percentage of its citizens who volunteered; 48th in the percentage of its citizens who attended a public meeting; and 37th in the percentage of its citizens who worked with others to address a community issue.

Survey data indicates that the recession has had an impact on citizens' involvement. Participants report that they have reduced their civic participation because of the economy and they believe others have also. There is some good news, however. Those who are already engaged are doing more.

The report suggests a number of activities that can improve citizen engagement. These include education, cross-generational activities, social networks and internet technologies.

The NCoC will be releasing civic health indexes for California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio in the coming weeks. All will be featured on the NCoC website.

What Federal Policies and Programs Can Help States Improve College Completion?

by Brenda Bautsch

President Barack Obama recently announced his goal of having the United States become number one in the world in terms of the number of adults with postsecondary degrees. This is a spot the United States once held, but in today's global economy, has slipped away.

The topic of college completion was the focus of the 6th annual Higher Education Institute in Denver, Colorado. The meeting was held by the National Conference of State Legislatures and allowed legislators from across the country the opportunity to come and share what their state is doing in terms of boosting higher education graduation rates.

Bob Shireman, Deputy Under Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, spoke to lawmakers about what the federal government is doing today, and what it plans to do in the future, to improve college access and success for everyone.

In this podcast, I was able to sit down with Deputy Under Secretary Shireman and talk to him about federal government action to secure loans and grants for college students and some upcoming reform that could make a postsecondary education more affordable. Shireman also talks about the higher education bill that Congress is working on, and how it could bolster college success.

Listen to this podcast (4:53) and our previous podcast on college completion rates with David Longanecker.