The Thicket at State Legislatures

"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."

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.

The Overgrown Thicket

by Karl Kurtz

In the last several weeks the brambles and thorns of preparation for NCSL's Legislative Summit, heavy business travel, personal vacation and a major project analyzing a new national opinion poll on attitudes toward democratic institutions have kept us from penetrating The Thicket.  We'll try to beat some new paths and get back on track.

During our hiatus, a few of the newsworthy events that should have appeared in The Thicket include:

• The New York Senate leadership situation seems to have stabilized, and both parties agreed on new rules that increase transparency, place term limits on leaders and committee chairs, and, perhaps most remarkably, provide equal staff resources to senators of both parties.  The rules were issued in a joint statement by Senate President Malcolm Smith, Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada, Deputy majority Leader Jeff Klein, Conference Leader John Sampson and Minority Leader Dean Skelos.
• The California and Illinois legislatures resolved budget impasses, leaving Arizona, Connecticut, North Carolina and Pennsylvania as the 3 states without budgets after the start of fiscal year 2010.
• National Journal's Lou Jacobson has published a list of "The Six Most Dysfunctional State Governments."  New York, Nevada, Illinois, Alaska, South Carolina and California make the list, which is based on a pseudo-scientific scale that appears to be based on talking to one or two people in each of these states.  The focus is heavily on scandal or malfeasance in the office of the governor.  Media cynicism is rampant in this article, leading with statements like "Of course, ineffective government is the oldest story in the book."

Writing in the Sacramento Bee, Dan Walters has a particularly trenchant summary of the California budget problems:

There are, in the broadest sense, three aspects to the state's chronic fiscal dilemma – societal, financial and political.

A Pretty Good Bang for the Buck, Indeed

by Karl Kurtz

An article by R. G. Ratcliffe in yesterday's Houston Chronicle begins:

When Texas lawmakers met in 1963, former state legislator Carl Parker of Beaumont had no office of his own and kept files under his desk on the chamber floor.

The cost of a legislative session in 1963: $2.9 million.

Forty-six years later, the Legislature is big business. The 81st Texas Legislature, which adjourned earlier this month, runs on a year-round support staff of more than 1,800 workers.

The cost per year: $171.5 million.

The cost of the 140-day session that ended June 1: $9.1 million.

That's an engaging lead, but missing from the article is any consideration of inflation.  That $2.9 million for a session in 1963?  It translates into $20.2 million in 2009 dollars (CPI inflation calculator). Apparently, the cost of a legislative session in Texas today is less than half of what it was in 1963 in constant dollars! 

The article didn't provide the 1963 annual cost of the legislative session, so we can't perform the same calculation for that number.  Had the reporter provided it and made the inflation calculation, it probably would have shown a substantial increase in constant dollars. The reason is that Texas session costs almost certainly have been shifted to year-round costs as the permanent staff of the Legislature is much larger than it was in 1963.

So the cost of running the Texas Legislature has almost certainly gone up in real terms, as it has in all states as legislatures have modernized and professionalized their operations.

Other statistics not mentioned in the article are that the annual cost of the Texas Legislature of $171.5 million comes out to $6.96 per capita or that it's only about 0.3 percent of the state's general expenditures.  That's also consistent with other states. The cost of state legislatures is relatively trivial: In no state does the cost of the legislature exceed one-half of one percent of state general expenditures.

Fortunately, the article ends with a comment that I couldn't agree with more:

Michael Quinn Sullivan, president of the conservative Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, said given the size of state government overall when Texas is compared to other states, he is not disturbed by how much the Legislature spends on itself.

“In a sense, you could say we’re getting a pretty good bang for the buck,” Sullivan said.

Legislative Downsizing

by Karl Kurtz

Stories about how legislatures are cutting state budgets are so ubiquitous that we haven't covered this topic in The Thicket.  There's already a well-worn path to our web page, State Measures to Balance 2010 Budgets.

How legislatures are cutting their own budgets has drawn less attention.  Travel bans for legislators and staff are common around the country, and legislative employees have been required to take furloughs like all other state employees.  Massachusetts state senators gave themselves unpaid furloughs as well in a symbolic move that saved $50,000.  This week the California Assembly announced 10 percent cuts in members' budgets for staff and operating expenses, which is estimated to save $2.3 million annually.

In one of the more unusual budget cutting moves, the Maine Legislature has passed a constitutional amendment to downsize the House from 151 to 131 members.  Maine's House districts are some of the smallest in the country with approximately 8,400 people in each constituency.  The size reduction will change that number to 10,000 per district and is estimated to save $1.5 million over two years.  (For background on this subject, see "What's the Right Size for a Legislature?")

"We came from beans, we can go back to beans."

by Karl Kurtz

Yesterday, as part of its series on the children of immigrants, NPR profiled California State Senator Abel Maldonado, who is one of the Republicans who broke with his party to cast the necessary votes to break California's budget impasse last month.  The story is one of three interesting articles about this legislator that I have read in the last month.

The NPR story begins:

In California, it can be tough to be a Republican. Tougher still if you're one who voted for the huge tax hike your party opposed. That's how state Sen. Abel Maldonado went from rising star to marked man in the GOP.

Maldonado was born in Santa Maria, but has stayed close to his Mexican roots. His family has a saying: "We came from beans, we can go back to beans," he says. His father never lets him forget the family's humble Mexican roots. Abel Sr. was a poor farmhand who came to central California on a World War II-era temporary worker program. The family spent years struggling.

The story goes on to discuss the price that Sen. Maldonado is likely to pay within his own party for his vote on the budget. It also references his hope that the vote might actually help him capture moderate Republican and Democratic votes if he runs for other offices.  But NPR didn't provide the crucial detail (for legislative junkies at least) about how Sen. Maldonado demanded that a constitutional amendment to create a blanket primary (in which all candidates of both parties run in the same primary) be placed on the ballot in return for his vote in favor of the budget. 

Do Fewer School Days = More Savings?

by Meagan Dorsch

When times are tough for state budgets, legislators sometimes cut  K-12 education funds as a way to save money.

But several states have been trying to help school budgets by giving school districts the flexibility to lengthen the school day, while cutting  back on the number of days that kids attend school each week.

The idea of a four-day school week is gaining ground in many states. 18 states have schools currently on a four-day week and 5 states have introduced legislation to move in that direction.

In this edition of The Buzz, we sit down with Ashley Wallace, senior policy specialist in the National Conference of State Legislatures' education program. Ashley explains why more states are looking into this option, how four-day school weeks operate and why this plan can draw criticism.

Listen to our podcast (7:02) and always log onto NCSL for more information.

We're All in This Together: Engaging Citizens Online

by Pam Greenberg

The Minnesota Senate has created a new web site that seeks citizen input about how to solve the state's projected $4.8 billion budget deficit.  Visitors to the site can comment and provide their ideas for key areas in the budget, such as education; economic development; environment, energy, and natural resources; health and human services; public safety; taxes; and transportation. The site also has links to a wealth of background information.  A few Minnesota citizens have weighed in.

Other states have had similar initiatives, sometimes packaged with an online budget balancing game or simulation tool.  Massachusetts Senator Richard T. Moore created Ma$$ Balance in 2003, when the state faced a $3 billion budget gap (the site is no longer active).  Ma$$ Balance was an interactive budget simulation game where players could try balancing the Massachusetts state budget.  The site had 1.5 million hits with people returning on average 5 times to the site, according to Serious Games Source.

Maine Governor John E. Baldacci's interactive budget balancing tool has been active since 1999.  The budget crisis has led several governors to invite citizen input recently (for example, in Arizona, New Jersey, New York, and Washington), but some of these sites seem to have been short-lived or are "temporarily disabled."  Governing's 2003 article, "Honey, I Shrunk the Budget" gives a great overview of some of the early interactive budget game websites. 

For those who wonder what results from citizen suggestions, there is California Senator Joe Simitian's "There Oughta Be a Law" contest, which has a track record of seven years of legislation resulting from ideas submitted by citizens. 

Additional meaningful legislative web-based civic engagement efforts include WestEd's Web Dialogues in California (Education Master Plan), Washington (Access to Higher Education and Obesity discussions) and Virginia Delegate Kris Amundson's Listening to Democracy's Next Generation-2008 web dialogue. 

Another high-profile online engagement project is President-elect Obama's Citizen's Briefing Book, which invites ideas on issues facing the new administration and allows citizens to rate others' suggestions.

Look Out for an "April Nightmare"

by Karl Kurtz

States, which already have closed $40 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2009 budget gaps, face at least an additional $97 billion they must close over the next 18 to 24 months, according to a national report issued today by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

NCSL said the news will pose difficult decisions for state legislators across the nation as they prepare for the 2009 legislative sessions.

"These budget gaps are approaching those seen in the last recession, which were the worst since World War II, and show every sign of growing larger," says William T. Pound, NCSL's executive director.

That's the bad news lead in the press release on NCSL's latest report on the fiscal condition of the states, State Budget Update: November 2008.

Enterprising reporter that I am, I journeyed the three feet from my office to that of Corina Eckl, the principal author of the report, to interview her about the "rest of the story."  Here's what she had to say:

Deteriorating revenues in nearly every state are the main culprit behind current state fiscal conditions.  Plunging consumer confidence, rising unemployment rates and increasing business failures all are contributing to shrinking state revenue.  In 15 states, severe revenue shortfalls are plaguing all major tax categories.   The shortages are particularly acute in states like Arizona, California, Florida, New York and Nevada. 

What makes the revenue news so distressing is that some collections do not even fully reflect recent crises in the financial services sector and deep declines in the stock market.  The full extent of the personal income tax breakdown won't be completely know until after the April 15, 2009 federal tax filing deadline.  Many states are bracing for an "April nightmare," a scenario not seen since the 2001 national recession.

Take a look at the spiffy new interactive maps of state fiscal conditions that summarize the results of the report.

Another Preview: State Fiscal Conditions

by Gene Rose

Attendees at today's meeting at the National Press Club today also are getting a preview of state fiscal conditions, courtesy of NCSL's Executive Director William Pound and Fiscal Affairs Program Director Corina Eckl.

Eckl announced that NCSL has a survey in the field, asking state legislative fiscal directors to provide data on state fiscal conditions. NCSL will compile that data and release its national analysis at NCSL's Fall Forum program in Atlanta, Georgia. NCSL plans on producing a Webinar live from Atlanta so those who cannot attend the meeting can hear Eckl's presentation of this report. Details about the Webinar will be available on NCSL's website within the next few days.

Previous NCSL reports indicate states closed a $40 billion budget gap in 31 states during legislative sessions earlier this year.  Arizona, California and Nevada faced the biggest gaps. Preliminary figures now suggest a new fiscal year 2009 budget gap of $30 billion. "We think it's only going to get worse," she told the audience. The December NCSL report will identify the full amount as it stands before state legislatures go into session in 2009.

Pound noted some states already have implemented hiring freezes, fund transfers and project delays. Several states, Eckl said, already are looking at budget reductions, with Nevada considering a 14 percent budget cut for the 2010 fiscal period. As the graphic here suggests, many states already are tapping into their "rainy day" funds to help balance budgets.

Pound said state legislatures will also be paying close attention to any federal tax actions because state tax systems are largely coupled to federal tax law. Eckl noted that state budget recovery often lags behind any national recovery.