The Thicket at State Legislatures

Well Deserved Recognition for Dedicated Census Redistricting Guru, Cathy McCully

by Tim Storey

In Friday's Washington Post, there was a wonderful profile of the Census Bureau's point person for getting the PL 94-171 redistricting data out to states, Cathy McCully. NCSL helped get Public Law 94-171 passed by Congress in the early 1970s, and we've been fortunate ever since to have outstanding contacts within the U.S. Census Bureau as partners. NCSL is indebted to Cathy and her team for their hard work and help in getting the data out to legislatures. That data will begin to arrive in legislative leaders offices in early February on a flow basis to states based on redistricting deadlines in each state. All states will have their redistricting data from the Census Bureau by April 1st. Congratulations Cathy and thank you for all of your assistance! Here's the link to the terrific WaPo story about Cathy: "From Loading Dock to Downloading."  

Photo credit: Bill O'leary, Washington Post

Who Will Meet in 2011?

By Meagan Dorsch

How many state legislatures will hold session in 2011?

With the new year comes the start of legislative sessions for all 50 states and territories; 43 of those begin in January. Several will finish in only a few months, although eight states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands will meet throughout the year.

The length of states' sessions vary from a few months to most of the year. Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania are some of the states that meet throughout the year. Utah's session, by contrast, will last less than two months. Legislative session lengths may be unrestricted or limited and are set in a variety of ways. Currently, 11 states do not limit the length of a regular session. In the remaining 39, limits are set by constitution, statute, chamber rule or indirect method.

2011 is expected to be a busy year for state legislatures and we welcome everyone back in January.

Use NCSL's 2011 legislative session calendar to find out when your state legislature will go back into session.

New Laws Help Ring in the New Year

By Meagan Dorsch

A host of new laws ranging from fresh drinking water for students in California to outlawing the use of K2 in Illinois become effective Jan. 1, 2011.

In Montana, payday lenders will be limited in the amount of fees and interest rates they can charge to borrowers. In Minnesota, retailers will be banned from selling children’s cups and bottles that contain bisphenol A (BPA). And in Delaware, Kansas and Kentucky, drivers will be prohibited from texting while driving.

Not all laws passed by state legislatures become effective on Jan. 1. State constitutions or statutes usually establish when laws go into effect. Sometimes, an effective date is written into the specific piece of legislation.

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) found a host of those state laws—in at least 26 states ranging from controversial to clever—that will become effective on New Year's Day.

This is not an exhaustive list, but a sampling of some new state laws effective on New Year’s Day.

Top 11 Issues of 2011

By Meagan Dorsch

We are just days away from entering into a New Year and a new legislative session. In 2011, all 50 states and territories will meet in regular session. 

The November election brought party change to a quarter of state legislatures across the country. But the hundreds of new state lawmakers may hear from their veteran colleagues that at least one thing has not changed: The sluggish economy is going to control the new year’s legislative agenda once again.

Each year, NCSL's puts together a list of top issues lawmakers can expect to encounter during the upcoming legislative session. Our Top 11 of 2011 list examines the pressing and important topics on state legislative agendas.

State budgets top the list for a fourth year in a row, followed by pensions, business development, implementing and interpreting health reform, and higher education. Legislatures also have their work cut out for them dealing with redistricting, foreclosures, release of prisoners, and K2 synthetic marijuana.

To read the entire list of issues, head over to NCSL's website.

The Top 11 of 2011 list was compiled through discussions with NCSL's policy experts, executive committee and standing committees. This list is not reflective of every issue legislatures will grapple with during the upcoming year, but rather an overview of some of the top issues expected to cross state lines and be dominant themes next year in state legislative sessions.

Take this list to your own state lawmakers and see if they agree, or use this list to explore what the Top 11 issues might be in your state in 2011.

The Numbers Game

The wait is now over!

The Census Bureau released key details of its 2010 count today, Dec. 21.

The result is more congressional seats for the South and the West, and fewer for the Northeast and the Midwest. The bureau announced the U.S population had grown to 308,745,538 million people, an increase of about 9.7 percent over the 2000 Census.

But what impact will these population shifts on have on redistricting?

Redistricting is very complex issue and it can take a lot of energy from state legislators already focused on traditional policy areas. The success in 2010 November elections by Republicans at the state level now gives them a decided advantage in this redistricting cycle. NCSL has identified redistricting as one of the Top 11 issues that state legislatures will deal with during the 2011 legislative session.

More information is available on NCSL's website.

It's Apportionment Eve

by Tim Storey

Tomorrow morning, December 21st at 11:00am eastern time, the Census Bureau will release the first official data from the 2010 census--the total U.S. population and the population for each state. For redistricting geeks, this is like Christmas Eve to the 10th power (since it only happens once a decade). The Secretary of Commerce, along with the Director of the Census Bureau, will hold a press conference at the National Press Club to release the numbers. These numbers will tell states how many seats they get in the U.S. House of Representatives for the next ten years. Those numbers also correlate to the total electoral college votes each state gets for President.

The Bureau will update their website simultaneously as they release the new data in DC. It's a cool website that you should check out. The website has an interactive, state-by-state map that allows you to looks at historic population trends by state back to 1900. You can access the snazzy population widget here: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data

If you would like to listen to the Bureau's announcement live, they will be streaming it on the Internet here: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=74725

It is widely expeceted, based on projections and estimates data, that southern and western states will be the big winners tomorrow at the expense of great lakes and northeastern states. For a projection of which states might be gaining seats, see this page at the Election Data Services site (scroll to the bottom for a map). Or, you could just wait until tomorrow morning and be surprised.

The detailed data that states use for redistricting will start to flow out from the Bureau on a state-by-state basis starting in early February of 2011. Here's hoping the apportionment Santa brings your state a shiny new congressional district and you aren't a victim of the seat stealing grinch. Unfortunately, it's a zero sum gain scenario, so there will be both happy and sad states at 11:10am eastern on Tuesday.

 

Happy Holidays

Regular readers may have noticed that The Thicket has been overgrown recently with travel, meetings and work that has prevented us from posting as often as we would like. Now the holidays set in, so please don't expect a lot from the legislative junkies at NCSL until after the first of the year.

Final Wrapup of 2010 State Legislative Elections

NCSL's Tim Storey has the most comprehensive summary of the 2010 election results for state legislatures in a guest column, "Legislature Landslide," for Sabato's Crystal Ball. It begins:

Late last week, a state judge on Long Island in New York certified that Mineola mayor Jack Martins, a Republican, had won the race for state Senate District 7 by a mere 451 votes out of the more than 85,000 cast. With that win, the GOP took control of the New York Senate by a 32-30 majority making it the last state legislative domino to fall in the 2010 election cycle. The New York state Senate was the 20th legislative chamber picked up by Republicans in the 2010 elections. In addition to gaining new majorities in 20 chambers, Republicans won enough seats in Oregon to tie the House at 30-30. Adding insult to injury, they also took a numerical majority in the Louisiana House when a Democratic representative switched parties, leaving that chamber with 51 Republicans and 50 Democrats along with four independents. Twenty-two state legislative chambers changed majority control in the 2010 election cycle—all in the direction of the GOP.

By this point, the overused weather clichés have all been trotted out. Whether you call it a hurricane, a tsunami or a seismic shift, it was an historic election at the state level for the GOP. By adding over 720 legislative seats to their column in the past two years, Republicans easily cleared the 1994 expectations bar. In 1994, the last big wave election, they netted over 500 seats and the majority in 20 legislative bodies. There are now more Republican state legislators (3,941) than at any point since they held 4,001 seats after the 1928 election.

Three Thoughts On Elections

by Wendy Underhill

I’m new to the world of elections law, and the learning curve has been steep.  If you’d asked me two months ago to write down three things about the voting system in the U.S., I’d have said: we vote in November (mostly), my heart swells with civic pride when I drop my ballot in the box, and… I might not have had a third thing to offer.

Now, I do.  I’ve had the chance to watch closely how elections are administered in my new role at NCSL as a policy specialist working on elections.  I came on board in time to prep for November 2, and since then I’ve watched the results pour in, and as time went by, dribble in.  From this, I’ve learned a thing or two or three.  

Thing One:  I learned that the election administrators’ prayer is “Please, God, let the winner win by a landslide.”  It’s the tight elections that take time to count precisely, require recounts, and bring out reporters, partisans and judges.  A good example: who’s the governor in Minnesota?  Today is one full month after election day, and the outcome is not yet certified.  Democrat Mark Dayton appears to be the winner over Republican Tom Emmer, but a recount is underway.  This is the lead story in St. Paul and Minneapolis newspapers, day after day after day.

Thing Two: We don’t really have “an election system” at all.  We have 50 systems, or more realistically over 3,000 systems, with counties and townships having administrative control of their own processes.  Not everyone votes as I did on a paper ballot, filling in bubbles that can be read by an optical scanner.  Because of multiple options on how and when to vote (at voting centers, by absentee ballot, by mail, or the “old fashioned way” at your precinct on the first Tuesday of November) it seems that no two people do it the same.  Even my husband and I had different experiences this year; he received a mail-in ballot, and I did not.

Thing Three:  Technology and voting are uneasy partners, so far.  Things may change, but right now online technology doesn’t seem to meld well with voting because of security concerns.  But online voter registration, on the other hand, is available and working well in a number of states (Arizona is one).  I’ll be interested in watching to see if more states go the online route.

These are my thoughts only; the thoughts of people with far more expertise than mine are captured in an NCSL elections newsletter, The Canvass.  The December issue is fresh on the ‘net.

Photo credit: Ian Britton in FreeFoto.com

Florida Legislature's Gary Vanlandingham Takes New Post with Pew Center on the States

by Karl Kurtz

Updated, 12/4/10

Gary Vanlandingham, who has worked for the Florida Legislature for 28 years including the last seven as director of the Office of Program Planning and Government Accountability (OPPAGA), will leave his state post at the end of the year to become director of the Pew Center on the States' Results First initiative in Washington, D.C.

Vanlandingham, in his resignation letter to the Florida legislative leadership says that the initiative will “partner with states to assess and advance policy options that benefit residents and improve states’ fiscal heath.” Pew's Results First web site says that the project provides technical assistance on four elements of policy making: using the best information, learning from other states, designing policies that work together as a package, and creating the climate needed to make decisions based on results.

As a former staff chair of NCSL (2008-09) and president of the National Legislative Program Evaluation Society, Gary has an exceptional network of contacts among legislative staff across the nation that will serve him well in his new position. He says that he expects to continue to be involved with NCSL in his new role.

Gary points with justifiable pride to the work of OPPAGA:

OPPAGA’s staff are superb and highly dedicated professionals who work extremely hard to meet the Legislature’s information needs and help it fulfill the constitutional duty to oversee the executive branch. During my tenure, OPPAGA has issued over 420 reports that have evaluated state agency performance and identified opportunities to deliver more efficient and effective public services. The Legislature has adopted over 80% of OPPAGA’s recommendations during this period, realizing over $755 million in savings.

Earlier this year, we wrote about major budget cuts at OPPAGA in The Thicket.