The Thicket at State Legislatures

Footnote on the New York Senate Gay Marriage Bill

by Karl Kurtz

From a legislative junkie's viewpoint, one of the most interesting aspects of the surprisingly one-sided rejection by the New York Senate of a gay marriage bill on Wednesday this week was this comment in the New York Times:

It is rare for legislation to reach the floor in Albany when passage is not all but assured. And initially, gay rights advocates resisted bringing this bill to a vote, fearing the consequences of a defeat. But they shifted that strategy over time, becoming convinced that an up or down vote was necessary so they could finally know which senators supported the bill.

New York Sen. Diane Savino makes a similar comment about the rarity of bills coming to the floor without assurance of passage in a YouTube video of her remarks on the bill.  The Times story does a good job of explaining some of the complex politics of this bill that led to a situation in which senators' positions were not well known and that the outcome on the floor was uncertain.

Is the New York Senate unique in bringing to the floor only bills that will pass? I can't answer this question definitively.  My guess is that New York is at one end of a continuum in this regard but that it is not unique.  Factors that are likely to affect whether the outcome on the floor is predetermined are the powers of the top leadership to control the chamber's agenda, the extent to which the majority caucus takes positions on bills, the importance of the issue and whether it's an up-and-down vote not subject to a lot of amendment or compromise.  In general, the more each of these factors is present, the more likely it is that passage is ensured on the floor.

In the case of the New York Senate vote all four factors were strongly present: It's a chamber with historically strong leadership, the majority caucus maintains tight control, the issue was important and highly visible, and it was a take it or leave it vote.  That's what made the outcome interesting and different.

I checked several scholarly books and didn't find anything relevant on how often bills are defeated on the floor.  Anyone else have comments or observations on this?

Run Government Like a Business: Who has the Time?

by Brian Weberg

We don't seem to hear it as much as we used to, but the claim that government would be better if "run like a business" still lurks in political campaigns and in criticisms of government inefficiencies (we even used it in a Thicket post a few years ago).  Today I was reminded of yet another reason why this prescription so thoroughly misses the mark.  In particular, government leaders--and especially those new to the job--simply do not have the luxury of time or resources available to their private sector counterparts to learn the levers of leadership and to deliver results.

My "ahah" came while listening in on a "teleforum" featuring Patricia Wheeler, an executive coach at The Levin Group.  Wheeler summarized a recent market study conducted by the Institute of Executive Development that examined "the transitions that top executives make into and through organizations, and the road blocks that can occur in the process..."  The results have interesting implications for the challenges that face legislative leaders and for the impending replacement of baby boomer executives at state legislative staff agencies.

Here are some of the findings:

• 72% of survey respondents reported that internal candidates hired into executive roles need more than three months to get up to speed and at least one-fourth need six months.
• Only 11% reported that orientation programs were effective at helping a new executive to be effective and fewer than one-third said that mentoring was useful. 
• Respondents (68%) identified "lack of interpersonal and leadership skills" as the primary cause for under performance by new executives.

My first reaction was to reflect on the "first 100 days" yardstick we use to measure Presidential effectiveness and the fact that many state legislative sessions are over in 90 days or less.  We expect our new government leaders to produce results starting on their first day on the job.  Three months to get up to speed?  Forget about it.  

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?   

Experiments in Social Media

by Gene Rose

Last week, three of NCSL's staff sections met in Austin, Texas, for their annual professional development seminars. State legislative staff representing public information, leadership and information technology sectors met to discuss key issues and trends in their chosen fields.

For the public information officers, much of the conference--including a one-day boot camp--focused on social media outreach. While recognizing there is significant resistance to 140-character conversations in the state legislative realm, there was even a greater sense that this new method of communication is being embraced by a significant number of legislators, staff and constituents. And, most agreed, those that don't recognize it as a critical communications tool are choosing to ignore an important audience.

NCSL staff decided to experiment on site to see what kind of response we would get by using social media to communicate with attendees and those who could not be in Austin to join us.

First, using a $100 video camera, we conducted more than 20 video interviews with faculty and attendees on site and posted them on our NCSL Facebook page. We heard  from some legislative staff who could not attend the meeting, wishing they could be there to share in the learning opportunities that the attendees highlighted. And the speakers really appreciated being interviewed, with many of them choosing to take the videos and post them on their own websites or Facebook pages.

Second, we announced that attendees and faculty use Twitter during the meeting. We set up a special hashtag (a set of characters that allows anyone online to follow what is being written about during the meeting) and encouraged its use. The #ncsl20 hashtag generated dozens of comments, including from people that could not attend the meeting.

All of this was done with minimal investment and a relatively low amount of staff time. The payoff--increased interest in the meeting and creating greater interaction between attendees, faculty and non-attendees--seems to have been well worth the effort.

We believe our experiments were successful and welcome suggestions to engage NCSL audiences--both on and off site--at future meetings. Share your thoughts in the comments link below.

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.

Republican Toehold in Delaware

Matt Sundeen, a former NCSL staffer who now works for the Bell Policy Center in Denver, sent us the following report:

I just returned from a vacation in the first/best state and I’m shocked that the Thicket missed a story about Delaware politics.  Last year, the House lost one of the nation’s longest serving speakers, Terry Spence, in the November elections.  Then last month, Senate President Pro Tem Thurman Adams, who had served since 1972, died.  Yesterday, in a special election to replace Adams, House Republican Joe Booth soundly defeated Adams’ daughter, Polly Adams Mervine.  The election ended an 0-11 streak for Republicans in statewide or special elections and reduced the Democrats' margin to 15-6 in the Senate.

A rose from The Thicket to Matt Sundeen.

Who's #1 in Legislative Leadership?

by Karl Kurtz

The ever-popular question of who the longest-serving legislative leader is has come up again.  Since the last time we wrote about this in 2006, the rankings have changed and, as always, the answer depends on the exact wording of the question.

Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan (left) has the longest tenure of any presiding officer.  First elected speaker in 1983, he is now in his 21st year as speaker with a two-year hiatus in 1995-96 when he served as minority leader. 

Because of that loss of majority status, Madigan does not have the longest consecutive service.  That honor belongs to Maryland Senate President Mike Miller (right, with friend), who was first elected in 1987.  Miller is the longest serving top senate leader, consecutive or otherwise.

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.

New York Senate Update

by Karl Kurtz

Yesterday a New York judge dismissed a case filed by Senate Democrats to overturn the Republican-led coalition's takeover of the state Senate.  The judge said that it would be an "improvident intrusion" for the courts to intervene in a legislative branch dispute.  The effect is to throw the matter back to the senators to resolve for themselves.

The Thicket can't keep up with this saga.  Plus we don't want to become all New York Senate all the time.  For those interested in blow-by-blow accounts, check in periodically with The Daily Politics or Capitol Confidential.

The Rockefeller Institute's Bob Ward has a nice commentary on the situation in the Albany Times-Union. He concludes:

A ruling from the high court would likely be the quickest route to resolution of the Senate stalemate. But in legislatures, which are intended to balance complicated and conflicting interests, the easy answer is not always the best.

Photo credit: "Acting State Supreme Court Justice Thomas McNamara, right, addresses attorneys representing Republicans and Democrats in the Senate leadership fight before dismissing the case Tuesday in Albany. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union"

New Episode in New York Senate

by Karl Kurtz

In an ongoing saga, the New York Senate is now tied, 31-31, as one of the two dissident Democrats who last week went over to the Republican side and change control of the Senate has returned to the Democratic fold.  Republicans claim that Sen. Pedro Espada, Jr. was elected president pro tem last week and that he will remain in that office until there are 32 votes to remove him.  Democrats say that the Espada/Republican takeover was illegal and that Sen. Malcolm Smith remains the pro tem and majority leader.  A judge will decide.

Part of the deal that returned the dissident, Sen. Hiram Monserrate to the Democratic side was that Sen. Smith be replaced as the leader of the Democratic conference.  Sen. John Sampson (photo) has now taken over that role, but Democrats must say that Sen. Smith retains the title of president pro tem in order to have standing in the litigation over the matter.  The current situation is summarized in a story in the Buffalo News with a somewhat melodramatic lead:

New York State is in the throes of a constitutional crisis, with the State Senate having fallen into further disorder after Monday’s decision by a Queens Democrat to flip his allegiances back from last week’s GOP-led coup — creating a 31-31 tie that creates gridlock.

The historic dispute, heightened by the state’s not having a lieutenant governor to break ties, creates a muddled future for how legislation will weave through the partisan-divided Senate—a situation that could remain until the fall elections in 2010.

NCSL's report on what has happened in tied chambers in other states is getting a good deal of attention in New York, although sometimes without giving us credit.  A tied chamber with a vacancy in the office of lieutenant governor makes the issue of whether the president pro tem could vote twice--once as a senator and once as acting lieutenant governor--a real one.  We provided a comparative perspective in anticipation of this scenario a year ago in "A Senator who can Vote Twice?".

Photo credit: (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)