The Thicket at State Legislatures

State Legislative Leaders Gather in Washington

By Jon Kuhl

New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D) speaks with former Mississippi Governor and RNC Chairman Haley Barbour

State legislative leaders from across the country gathered in Washington last week for NCSL’s annual legislative leaders meeting. The meeting began with briefings on sequestration and immigration reform; hot topics in Washington and state capitols.

During lunch on Thursday, leaders heard from former Mississippi Governor and Chairman of the Republican National Committee Haley Barbour. Following Barbour’s talk, the leaders visited Capitol Hill for briefings from House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Congressman Luke Messer (R-Ind.), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). In the evening on Thursday, legislative leaders heard about deficit reduction efforts in Canada from Tony Clement, President of the Canadian Treasury Board and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario.  

Speaker William Howell (R-Va.) talking with U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood

On Friday, legislative leaders began their day with a briefing from U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Secretary LaHood was followed by former Vermont Governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

Up next was a discussion on technology and the economy with Michael Powell, former FCC Chairman and current President of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. Following Chairman Powell was a question and answer session with David Agnew, White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs.  

Wisconsin House Speaker Robin Vos (R) introduces Congressman Paul Ryan

 

Speaker Andy Tobin (R-Ariz.) chats with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

Vermont House Majority Leader William Jewett (D) speaking with former Vermont Governor and DNC Chairman Howard Dean

Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell greets Senator Shawn-Michael Malone, President of the Senate, U.S. Virgin Islands (D)

Maine House Majority Leader Seth Berry (D) talking with David Agnew, White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs

  

Charleston, S.C. Building is the Model for Parliamentary Buildings in the British System

By Karl Kurtz

Image from South Carolina State House History

The development of what was to become the standard configuration of a Parliament in the British parliamentary system occured not in London but, it appears, in the legislative building located in the city of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1750s. 

That sentence caught my eye as I was leafing through an article, "Parliamentary World Heritage Sites," by James W. Macnutt, a former legislative counsel for the Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly, in The Parliamentarian (go to p. 122), the magazine of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

Who knew? We usually think of British parliamentary forms influencing the United States, not the other way around. The article goes on to explain:

[Charleston] was then the capital of one of the most sophisticated, educated and prosperous British colonies of the time.

What made the legislative building in Charleston so significant is that it employed all the principles of protocol and precedence that had their origins in ancient history as adapted and utilized by the Greeks anad the Romans. These principles were later applied in the 1850s rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in the Victorian Gothic designs created by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin.

Charleston County Courthouse

That legislative building in Charleston, originally built in 1753, turns out to be the Charleston County Courthouse today. It became the courthouse after the capital was moved to Columbia in 1796. The courthouse has been remodeled and expanded, including the addition of a third floor and the elimination of the original cupola. 

In his article Macnutt, an architectural historian, has a long list of characteristics of the old capitol in Charleston that formed the model for British parliamentary buildings. Among them are location in the urban center, neoclassical design, the second floor as the principal floor, accomodations for the governor and the legislature, and a "throne" for the presiding officer in the legislative chamber.

The Charleston building directly influenced the Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia legislative buildings in Charlottetown and Halifax. These two Canadian provincial legislatures are seeking recognition of their buildings by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as World Heritage Sites, and Macnutt's article states the case for this honor. The only legislative building currently on that august list is the Palace of Westminster in London.

Interestingly, articles about the old state house that I could find online said nothing about the influence on British parliamentary practice. But several pointed out that the architect of the Courthouse remodel, James Hoban, later designed the White House in Washington, D.C., and that one can find similarities between the two buildings.

International Observers not Welcome Everywhere

By Wendy Underhill

International election observers are in the United States, hoping to learn from, and possibly comment on, our elections. As noted in The Thicket on October 29, exactly where they observe is a function of state law. Statutes in several states expressly permit international observers; no state expressly forbids international observers.

And yet state law still governs who can be in a polling place on Election Day. At least two states this year—Texas and Iowa—have barred international election observers based on those laws, indicating that anyone who is not permitted (voters, poll workers, poll watchers) could be subject to arrest.

In Iowa earlier this week, secretary of state Matt Schultz released a statement saying:

As Secretary of State, I support the efforts of other nations to learn more about our election process and ways in which they might improve their own election systems … My office met with two delegation representatives last week to discuss Iowa’s election process and it was explained to them that they are not permitted at the polls. Iowa law is very specific about who is permitted at polling places, and there is no exception for members of this group." 

In Texas, Attorney General Greg Abbott wrote to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the organization that is sponsoring the election observers, with these words last week:

The OSCE's representatives are not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place. It may be a criminal offense for OSCE's representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place's entrance.

It's not the merits of international election observation efforts that are at issue. It is that every state can and does set its own election procedures. Even though the U.S. is a member of OSCE and as such is expected to permit election observers, state law reigns supreme on Election Day.

Doug Chapin explains some of the politics of this issue in "OSCE vs. Texas and Iowa: The Facts Behind the Fight."

2012 State Legislative Election Preview and Other Tidbits from State Net

by Karl Kurtz

State Net's ever-useful Capitol Journal last week carried an update by Lou Cannon of potential party-switching legislative chambers in this fall's elections--based at least partially on his conversations with NCSL's Tim Storey--and a couple of other interesting items.

Cannon's list of vulnerable chambers under Republican control includes the Colorado House, the Maine House and Senate, the New Hampshire House ("an outside chance"), the New York Senate and the Wisconsin Senate. In the case of the Wisconsin Senate, the chamber is currently tied with one vacancy. The tie will be resolved on June 5 when four Republican senators face recall elections, and the one vacancy will be filled. Although Cannon doesn't say this, it's possible that the Democrats could take control on June 5 only to lose it in November when senators have to run in newly drawn districts.

The chambers that could switch from D to R include the Arkansas House and Senate, the New Mexico House (erroneously identified as the Senate in the article) and the Iowa and Nevada senates. Tim and I would add the Oregon Senate and the Minnesota House--and possibly the Senate--to that list.

Also missing from Capitol Journal's list of chambers that could switch are two tied chambers: the Alaska Senate and the Oregon House.

The same issue of Capitol Journal reports on primary defeats of two incumbents in Oregon. Republican Sen. Chris Telford was defeated by a former House member, Tim Knopp. In the House, challenger Jeff Reardon defeated Democratic Rep. Mike Schaufler. In both races at least a few incumbent legislators supported the challengers over their colleagues from the same party.

Finally, Capitol Journal calls attention to an op ed article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week in which two Republican members of Congress' Joint Economic Committee, Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas) and Sen. Jim DeMint (South Carolina), likened the financial management of the states of California, Illinois and Michigan to that of Greece and praised New Jersey, Rhode Island, Utah and Wisconsin for pursuing Germany's "model of fiscal prudence."

"States that have followed Europe's economic policy model of unbridled spending are getting Europe's economic results: low growth and looming fiscal catastrophe," the two Republicans wrote. "Congress must — in word and if necessary in law — make plain that the taxpayers will not protect these states from the consequences of their policies."

They did not suggest, however, that any states would have to leave the dollar zone and switch to the drachma.

Echoes from North of the Border

by Karl Kurtz

Rob Walsh, the retiring nonpartisan chief legal counsel to  the Canadian Parliament, laments the condition of Canada's representative democracy in an article in the Ottawa Citizen:

Walsh retired last week with worries about the fate of a Parliament where many of the players have lost all respect for the traditions, conventions and rules of the game that made Canada’s democracy work. They’ve been flouted, battered and worn down by partisan gamesmanship that all parties have put ahead of the public interest.

“The political game has become so driven by the desire for partisan gain and victories that the institution is forgotten. The traditions of an institution that emerged over the centuries . . . are just by the bye and now, it’s whatever works, and that disturbs me,” said Walsh in an interview. “We don’t have parliamentarians who value the House as an institution and will accept limitations on what they would otherwise do for the sake of the institution.”

In the cut and thrust of partisan politics, Walsh had the unenviable job of walking the neutral line of dispensing legal advice without alienating any side or stumbling into the political debate....

“The House of Commons comes with a panoply of rules and traditions that are supposed to govern how the parties and members conduct themselves . . . and too often in recent times these values have been, if not forgotten, subordinated to short- and midterm political objectives and that’s regrettable and yes, it concerns me.”

He worries how democracy can work when time limits are imposed on legislative debates, more and more committee business is done behind closed doors, free debate is squelched by scripts and prepared texts, omnibus bills are crammed with massive legislative changes, and rude and raucous question periods are dominated by “sham questions and sham answers.”

Walsh's concerns about Parliament echo the complaints of many diehard institutionalists about the condition of Congress and some state legislatures. The story also provides intriguing details about the dilemmas that legislative attorneys sometimes face in balancing their nonpartisan role with their obligation to protect parliamentary rights and privileges.

A rose from The Thicket to Kevin Deveaux.

Photo credit: Ottawa Citizen

 

The Mother of all Institutions

by Karl Kurtz

For more years than I wish to count, I have often concluded my speeches with an inspirational message about the role of legislatures in a democracy by showing this photo:

I first saw (and inexpertly photographed) this sign, which reads "Povo sem parlamento é povo escravo" in Portuguese, in front of the Rio Grande do Sul [state] Legislative Assembly building in Porto Alegre, Brazil nearly 20 years ago. Literally translated, it means "People without parliament are people in chains." For me it captures one of the key missions of legislatures all over the world: To protect the rights and freedoms of the people.

Now, courtesy of the unlikely source of a party leader in Pakistan, I have a new tag line to add to my repertoire: "Parliament is mother of all institutions." The president of Awami National Party (ANP), Asfandyar Wali Khan, recently made this statement to explain why his party would not take part in any efforts to remove the Pakistani government. He went on to say, "...[A]ll the state institutions derived strength from the parliament" and "...we all have to accept this reality that parliament was the base of state institutions."

I love the image of legislatures as the mother of all governmental institutions. It's a bit like saying that Congress is (or state legislatures are) the first branch of government because the legislative article is first in the U.S. Constitution and most state constitutions--but it's a more colorful and evocative phrase.

Find the quotes at agora-parl community (gated) or Pakistan Observer.

Friday Fun With Videos

by Wendy Underhill

Swapping YouTube videos is part of the entertainment at our family get-togethers.  We crowd around a laptop screen and take turns saying, “Have you seen this one?” or “What about this?”

To date, I've never offered our crew an elections-related video. Oh sure, campaign videos can be fun, but elections policy?  Not so much.

Tonight is the night, though.  I've found two videos that are both meaty enough in terms of content and also entertaining enough to show at the family feast.  Perhaps your family might enjoy them, too?

Introducing the Voting Information Project  The title need more pizzazz, but the animation is just great as is.  Just so you know, VIP, a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, makes the key information, such as where to vote and how to vote, available through search engines, social media, mobile apps, and online news sites.

Alternative Voting Explained by the clever American ex-pat C.G.P. Grey who comments on things American and British from London: Lions, wallabies, and a red squirrel explain how an Alternative Voting system (aka "instant runoff voting") would work.  In less than five minutes, you’ll learn the differences between "AV" and our current system (aka "first past the post") and your kids will giggle at the cuddly critters.

If you know of other entertaining elections videos, please send them to The Thicket. Many thanks.

Parliamentary Parties in a Checks and Balances System

by Karl Kurtz

Several weeks ago, I heard the American Enterprise Institute's Norman Ornstein give a very interesting speech about the evolution of Congress over the last several decades to a civics teacher training institute that NCSL cosponsored. I wanted to write about his speech, but it was so rich in content that, lacking his text, I despaired at trying to summarize it. Now I have discovered that his speech was a condensed version of an article, "Worst. Congress. Ever.," that he recently wrote for Foreign Policy, so readers have a source to find the details.

In addition to the useful ways in which Ornstein summarizes political changes in the Congress over the last 40 years, I thought two things in his speech were particularly useful to teachers (and observers) of legislative politics. The first is the concept of unified, bloc-voting parliamentary parties trying to operate in a separation of powers system, which he traces back to the health care policy debate of the last Congress:

Republicans, having been thrashed at all levels in 2008, did not respond to the voters' rebuke by cooperating with the majority or trying to find common ground. Instead, repeating a tactic employed with great political success by Republicans in 1993 and 1994 against a newly elected President Bill Clinton, they immediately united fiercely and unremittingly against all the Obama and Democratic congressional initiatives. In the Senate they used delay tactics -- the filibuster and the hold -- in an unprecedented fashion, to block a large number of Obama administration nominees for executive branch positions and draw out debate to clog the legislative process and make an already messy business even messier. The session's legislative accomplishments occurred because Democrats maintained enough discipline -- and had large enough margins -- to enact their bills with the support of Democrats alone. The health-care bill was able to make it past a Republican filibuster in the Senate because Democrats, for a brief moment, had exactly enough senators to overcome it. Both parties acted as if they were parliamentary parties, indivisible blocs rather than groups of individual actors casting votes for reasons besides partisan loyalty. But in a non-parliamentary system, built on checks and balances and a separation of powers, parliamentary parties simply cannot work. Accomplishments get delegitimized, and some areas like climate change, end up in total gridlock.

At the time that he was speaking (and writing the article), before the cross-party resolution of the debt ceiling limit, the two congressional parties were engaged in unyielding confrontation, neither one willing to cede anything to the other. I found his comment that parliamentary-style parties don't work in a separation of power system interesting and reflected that the opposite is also true: American-style cross-party coalitons wouldn't work well in a parliamentary system that depends on unified majorities to choose and maintain the government in power and to pass laws.

The second helpful point was his emphasis on the permanent campaign and increased partisanship in the Congress. After summarizing sweeping changes to the two major political parties in recent decades, he concludes:

Even the Bored Deserve Representation

by Karl Kurtz

Matthias Poehm, founder of the Anti-PowerPoint Party (APPP) in Switzerland, estimates that 11 percent of the Swiss population has to endure two PowerPoint presentations per week and claims that this loss of productivity costs Switzerland $2.4 billion annually. These unsubstantiated claims have drawn a lot of chatter and laughter on the Web, no doubt striking a chord because all of us have been subjected to bad, even terrible, PowerPoint presentations.

What I like the best, though, is this statement on the party's web site, reported in The Envoy:

"The APPP regards itself as the advocate of approximately 250 million world citizens (500 000 in Switzerland) who, every month, are obliged to be present at boring presentations in companies, at universities or at schools and who, up to now, have not found a political representation in politics," the party website states.

It's a reminder that in a representative democracy virtually every interest, no matter how small or narrow, has an advocate in the form of a political party or group.

Microsoft, a powerful advocate on the oher side, has chosen not to comment according to the Wall Street Journal, other than to say that Poehm is using a guerilla marketing tactic to sell his book--join his party and you get a discount on his book.

Kazakhstan: Election Observations

by Wendy Underhill

Sean Greene, Private Citizen, spent nine days in Kazakhstan this spring, observing that central Asian country’s election.  (In his professional life, Mr. Greene is the research director for the Pew Center on the States’ Election Initiatives.) He gave me the low-down on his experiences, and that got me thinking that I might like to be an election observer sometime; perhaps his story will have the same effect on others, too. 

On Election Day, April 3, 2011,  Mr. Greene, his Slovakian observer-partner, and their driver/interpreter were out of bed before dawn to watch opening preparations at one of ten rural polling places they were to visit  during the day.  Mr. Greene said that “my role as a short-term observer was to observe and to ask questions, but not to make any suggestions or comments.” In effect, he was a data-gatherer, and had very specific guidelines and formats to follow.  

After dark, he watched the votes get tallied and waited as sealed vote tallies were brought in from outlying areas. The day was over at 1 am-- But not for the long-term observers. They received the data gathered by nearly 400 observers who had fanned out around the country, and by mid-afternoon the next day, they’d posted a preliminary statement based on those observations. A final report is expected soon.

Mr. Greene’s personal observation was that “voters were in and out in a minute. They’d come into the building, get checked in at a voter list, show a photo ID as required in Kazakhstan, get a ballot, go in the booth, mark it, drop it in the box, and be done.”  It was simple, largely because the vote was for just one office (the presidency) and only four candidates were on the ballot.

International election observers sometimes travel to the United States, too, to learn how we handle much more complex situations. This year North Dakota and New Mexico joined the District of Columbia, Missouri, and South Dakota in explicitly permitting these folks.  That’s not exactly a groundswell, but it is a “vote of confidence” for international exchanges.

Interested in becoming an international election observer?  Here are a few things that a potential observer might want to know:

Who: Legislators, elections administrators, and people with overseas experience are especially welcome as election observers, but anyone can apply.

Who Again: The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is the best-known organizing agency for international election observations. 

How Much Money: Trip expenses are covered for United States citizens; this can vary by country.

How Much Time: Short-term observers are on assignment for a week or a bit more; long term observers may be in-country for a couple of months.

Where: Observers can indicate a preference among countries that have upcoming elections; the OSCE will be in Turkey, Moldova, and Cyprus soon.

One last comment from Mr. Greene: “it’s an interesting way to see a country. I’d recommend it highly. The only problem was just getting used to the time change—they’re 10 hours ahead.”