The Thicket at State Legislatures

What Constitutes Experience?

by Karl Kurtz

Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of Governing, has an interesting guest column in Newsweek entitled "Are You Experienced: Why a U.S. Senator might not trump a state legislator" in which he argues that Sen. Barack Obama's experience as a state legislator counts for at least as much as Sen. John McCain's (or Sen. Hillary Clinton's) tenure in the Senate.  His point is that state legislators get much more in-depth policy experience than U.S. senators who "are, virtually by the nature of the job, gadflies", because the state lawmakers have to become experts and negotiators themselves rather than relying on staff to do it for them.

Rather than suggesting that this state legislative experience is a reason to support Obama over McCain (or vice versa), Ehrenhalt concludes that "experience itself is a slippery commodity to measure—that there is no easy way to guess what sort of political career is ideal for a president...."

This article resonated with me not only because of my institutional bias toward the value of state legislatures but also because I have often wondered during this campaign about the claims and counter-claims of  "experience" among Senators McCain, Clinton and Obama.  But I want to add a couple of thoughts that elaborate on Ehrenhalt's conclusion about the complexity of determining what constitutes good experience. 

Louisiana Adjournment

"Chaotic legislative session comes to an end" is the Times-Picayune's headline summarizing Louisiana's legislative session that adjourned yesterday.  Here are the top lines of the story:

Lawmakers provided new money for education and health care, overhauled the state's worker-training system, bolstered the state's mental health safety net and steered tax dollars to a private school voucher program for poor children in New Orleans.

But the session is likely to be best remembered for two items that were not part of the governor's plan: an increase of legislative salaries from $16,800 to $37,500 a year, and a $300-million-a-year tax cut that the administration initially opposed but ultimately embraced....

And while House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, is a subject of derision on radio talk show and Internet chat boards, his stewardship of the pay-raise bill earned him bipartisan acclaim from his colleagues, who saw him as standing up to the administration.

"This is the closest we have come to being an independent body from the fourth floor, and that bodes well for this body," Rep. Roy Burrell, D-Shreveport, said as lawmakers prepared to leave the Capitol.

We first wrote about seeds of change in Louisiana that might lead to more assertiveness on the part of the Legislature a year ago in "Changes in the Louisiana Legislature."

Reform is in the Eye of the Beholder

by Karl Kurtz

What's your definition of reform?  The New York Times today leads a story about Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's willingness to allow a legislative pay raise to take effect without his signature with:

The reformist image of Gov. Bobby Jindal, considered by Republicans a top potential vice-presidential choice, has recently taken a beating after Mr. Jindal refused to veto a sizable pay increase that Louisiana legislators voted for themselves this month.

The increase would more than double the salary of the part-time legislators effective July 8, to $37,500 from $16,800, with considerably more money available once expenses are added in. It has touched a nerve in this impoverished state....

More confounding to many citizens here than the action by the lawmakers is the inaction of Governor Jindal, who came into office this year with promises to overhaul Louisiana’s reputation for dubious ethics.

The story goes on to catalog the media attacks on the governor and the Legislature for the pay raise.

I don't quite get the notion that "reform" means refusing to raise legislative pay while increasing pay seems to constitute "dubious ethics."  I've been collecting data on legislative compensation since 1972.  Since that date the compensation of Louisiana legislators has declined by 15 percent in real terms (taking inflation into account), without considering workload increases.  The last pay raise in Louisiana was in 1980.  In the last 40 years the time demands of legislative work in Louisiana have gone from about a one-third time job to one that Louisiana legislators on average estimate is about three-quarters of a full-time job.  (See "What Accounts for the Amount of Time Legislators Spend on the Job.")

Given these facts, it seems to me that giving Louisiana legislators a pay raise is a no-brainer.  Sure, you can argue about the exact amount of the increase (the original proposal adopted by the Senate was for tripling pay) and whether it should apply to sitting members of the Legislature, but the need for a substantial increase is clear. As Speaker Jim Tucker, who managed the bill in the House (and took most of the heat for it) said in the Times-Picayune, "For all of its bad press, it was the right thing to do.  We need everybody in this state to be able to serve in the Legislature."

In my mind, Gov. Jindal would be a "reformer" if he stood up for the pay raise, signed the bill and told the public why it was important and necessary.

Does it really matter which side claims the mantle of reform?  Maybe not. I am always mindful of something that former congressman and speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives Martin Sabo used to say, "Reform is what you call something that you can't get passed on its merits."

What Accounts for the Amount of Time Legislators Spend on the Job?

by Karl Kurtz

Does increasing legislators' pay cause them to spend more time on the job, potentially turning them into full-time legislators if the pay raises are high enough? 

That was a question that I was asked by a New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter last week, as the Louisiana Legislature was in the midst of a debate over a bill that would have taken the unusual step of pegging legislative salaries at 30 percent of congressional salaries, increasing automatically with federal lawmakers' pay in the future.  The effect would have been to triple Louisiana legislators' salaries from $16,500 per year to $50,700. This bill had originally passed the Senate, but the House modified the proposal to double salaries to  $37,000.  Today the  Senate agreed to the House changes.  Since Gov. Jindal has said that he would allow the law to pass without his signature, the change will likely go into effect on July 1.

But back to the original question.  I responded that there is a relationship between pay and time spent on the job of being a lawmaker but that it is not always easy to determine cause and effect.  Generally, the more full-time the work of a legislature, the higher the pay for the members.  But do legislators spend more time on the job because they are getting more pay or do they raise the pay because the job is more demanding?  It's hard to tell.  The best answer is probably that both tendencies are mutually reinforcing.

Two years ago I, along with co-authors Gary Moncrief of Boise State University  and Richard Niemi and Lynda Powell of the University of Rochester, took a look at one side of this problem: what determines how much time legislators spend on legislative work?  We published an article, "Full-Time, Part-Time and Real Time: State Legislators Perceptions of Time on the Job," in State Politics and Policy Quarterly.  The article is based on a national survey of all state legislators that we conducted in 2002 in which we asked the question, "Averaged over an entire year and taking into account session time, interim work, constituent service and campaigning, what proportion of a full-time job is your legislative work?"  We found considerable variation in time spent on the job across states as indicated by the average responses from each state to this question in the map (click to enlarge).

But averages mask significant variations among legislators  within any given state.  For example, in Maine the average response was that being a legislator is two-thirds of a full-time job. But one in four Maine legislators said that the job was less than half-time, and 17 percent said that it was virtually a full-time job.

What accounts for the amount of time spent being a legislator?  To find the answers you can wade through the full article at the link above, or you can read a simplified summary of our findings below the jump.

Good Leadership or Good Looking?

by Meagan Dorsch

I love funny emails and I think the funniest one to date arrived yesterday in my in-box.

A blog called Elected Hotties wanted to let me know that I still had time to vote for one of the hottest legislators in the Utah House of Representatives. Don't worry everyone! Voting has just started for both men and women. Next week, Elected Hotties will judge the members of the Utah Senate, and after Utah, Elected Hotties is coming to vote on members of your legislature!

I had to check out this website. The site's tag line alone ("just another way to get to know your elected officials...the hot ones anyway") made me laugh out loud and take 15 minutes out of my day to explore the webpage. My favorite part is the scrolling pictures of the "winners so far." When you log on (because I know you will) put your mouse over a picture. HA!

This website transported me back to 1985 when I was cutting pictures out of Teen Beat and Tiger Beat magazines. I began to wonder if this is the 2008 version of the magazines for legislative junkies? Can we print their pictures and put them up on our office walls?

There is a conversation in the blogosphere about the Elected Hotties website. We want to hear your two cents.

Rules of Legislative Conduct

by Karl Kurtz

Colorado Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon passed out these thoughtful suggestions for future legislators to his fellow senators yesterday on his last day of his last session in the Colorado Legislature (he is term-limited):

Gordon's Rules of Legislative Conduct
(Suggestions for future legislators)

1.  Think for yourself. If you don't have any internal values that inform your conduct here, find another occupation.

2.  Leadership: You can't always be liked and always do the right thing. If you don't have the courage to sometimes do the right thing even though it will anger some person or support group, you should find another occupation. If you don't have courage, you may be an elected official, but you are not a leader.

3.  If you are in the majority and you can't pass a bill that you want to pass without abusing the process, then you shouldn't pass the bill.  If you can’t kill a bill that you want to kill without abusing the process, then you shouldn’t kill the bill.

Judges Jam up Lawyer-Legislators in New York

by Karl Kurtz

In a tangled web in which it is difficult to sort out fact, fiction and rumor, New York State judges are jousting with the Legislature over a pay raise.  Neither state judges nor legislators have received a pay raise since 1999.  The state Senate passed a pay raise for judges in 2007, but the bill did not make it out of the Assembly, purportedly because Assembly members want their own pay raises tied to the judges'.

State judges are angry over the failure to get pay raises and are striking back.  Chief Judge Judith Kaye has filed a lawsuit against the governor, Speaker Sheldon Silver (photo) and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno demanding a pay raise.  The attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, has declined to defend the governor and legislators in the case, so the state is hiring outside counsel.

Recently a number of judges trying cases in which New York legislator-lawyers--or their law firms--are appearing have recused themselves because they say that they are so angry over the pay raise issue that they would not be able to rule fairly.  At least some of them have said that this is a deliberate effort to slow down the process and punish the legislators for their inaction, even though Judge Kaye has warned them against this tactic.

Now another judge in Erie County has filed a notice with the county clerk seeking advice as to whether Speaker Silver's law firm should be disqualified from participating in a multi-million dollar civil suit because of a conflict of interest resulting from the speaker being a named defendant in Judge Kaye's suit.  For his part, Speaker Silver, who is of counsel to the firm, says that he has no stake in his office's lawsuit and that the claim is irrelevant.

As is so often the case in New York, the focus of attention is on the top leaders of the Assembly (mostly in this case) and the Senate.  They are viewed in the media as being all-powerful, autocratic and to blame for everything that is wrong or (rarely) right.  This simplistic view of the power of legislative leaders overlooks the fact that Speaker Silver and Senator Bruno cannot and do not take action without support from their party's majority caucus.  On an issue as visible as the judges' pay raises, they would not remain top leaders if they did other than the bidding of their caucuses.  Lawyers make up a minority of the members of the Assembly and the Senate, so judges taking out their frustration on the lawyer-legislators seems misguided.

Early April Adjournments in Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Maryland

by Karl Kurtz and Bakur Kvaratskhelia

Catching up on our sine die series, four state legislatures "went dark" in the first few weeks of April.

• The Idaho Legislature adjourned its 87-day session on April 2. State revenue came in slower than expected, leading to the failure of new spending proposals, especially in the area of transportation.  Republican Governor Bruce Otter and the Republican majority in the legislature were often at odds.  Significant tax changes included an increase in the rebate that Idahoans receive for sales taxes on groceries and an increase in the exemption for business equipment taxes.
• The Georgia General Assembly completed its 40-day legislative session on April 4. Major legislation enacted included a bill that facilitates creation of charter schools, a measure to make it easier for permit holders to carry weapons in restaurants and other public places, and a plan to make it easier to build new water reservoirs in the drought-stricken state.  The House and Senate each had dueling tax cut measures and were unable to reach agreement on either of them.   
• The Maryland General Assembly wrapped up its 2008 session on April 8, with $500 million in budget cuts in a faltering state economy at the forefront. Gov. Martin O'Malley described the session as a "really grueling" period. In response to a computer industry outcry, the legislature repealed a computer services tax that it has passed in a special session last November.
• The Alaska Legislature adjourned its session--the first since voters mandated a 90 day limit compared to the previous 121 day limit--on April 13.  Majority Republican leaders hailed the session as a great success, while fellow Republican Governor Sarah Palin chastised the Legislature for spending too much money.  High oil prices and an oil tax increase enacted last year allowed the Legislature to put $5 billion into two rainy day funds this year.  Gov. Palin has called a special session for June to deal with an oil pipeline issue.

Photo credit: Sine die in the Georgia Senate by Andre in Georgia Politics Unfiltered.

Recall: Tool of Accountability or "an Affront to Representative Democracy"?

by Karl Kurtz

Recall, the procedure for voters to remove and replace a public official before the end of a term of office, is infrequently used at the state level but has been in the news in California, Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey in the last couple of weeks.  Eighteen states provide for recall of state officials, but the procedure is used far more often at the local than the state level of government.

Today's Sacramento Bee has a story about a recall petition against California Republican Sen. Jeff Denham that has qualified for the ballot.  The date of the recall vote, which is structured in a similar manner to the one in which Gov. Gray Davis was famously removed and replaced by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003, must be called by Gov. Schwarzenegger, most likely in conjunction with the state's June 3 state primary.

His name doesn't appear on the ballot, but state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata is the indisputable driving force behind the recall of Sen. Jeff Denham, the first of a California legislator since 1995.

Ostensibly, the Democratic leader's effort to unseat a Republican who was easily re-elected in 2006 stems from last year's 53-day state budget stalemate. Denham joined his GOP colleagues in voting against the spending plan.

But beyond the bad blood over the budget, a successful recall would move Democrats, who hold a commanding 25-15 lead in the Senate, to within one vote of being able to pass a budget and raise taxes without a Republican vote.

On the same theme, the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday editorialized against the recall:

The effort to recall state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, is worse than an abuse of the recall process. It is an affront to the very principles of representative democracy.

The editorial goes on to charge Senate Democrats with political opportunism for initiating the recall against Sen. Denham rather than other Republicans because his district, which has more registered Democrats than Republicans, is a target of opportunity.  I couldn't find a response from Sen. Perata to these claims, but proponents of the recall campaign against Denham say that he should be held accountable for his vote against the budget.

In Illinois, which is not one of the 18 states that have the recall, the House of Representatives last week passed a proposed constitutional amendment to establish a recall procedure by a vote of 75-33.  The Chicago Sun-Times called the amendment "a blunt

First Woman Majority Leader

by Karl Kurtz

Our members seem to have an unquenchable thirst for "firsts".  Today's request came from Montana: Was Rep. Ann Mary Dussault in 1979 the first woman in the country to serve as house majority leader? 

We're sorry to report that the answer is no.  According to Women State and Territorial Legislators, 1895-1995: A State-by-State Analysis, with Rosters of 6,000 Women by Elizabeth Cox, Rep. Reva Beck Bosone served as majority leader of the Utah House in 1935-36.  In a distinguished career, she later moved on to become a city judge, member of Congress (the first woman from Utah), a congressional staffer, and the chief judicial officer of the U.S. Postal Service.

Another equally distinguished American with a similar resume of "firsts", former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, was elected majority leader of the Arizona Senate in 1972 and served for two years.  She made some interesting comments about her service in the Legislature in a 2006 interview in U.S. News and World Report.

These requests for "firsts", like the "longest-serving" questions, seem to be never-ending.  But they are fun bits of legislative trivia, so we report on them.  See, for example, "First African-American Woman Speaker", "African-American Presiding Officers", and "Where Women Run for the Legislature".  Maybe we should create a category in The Thicket for these stories.

A rose from The Thicket to Katie Ziegler for her help on this story.

A Senator who can Vote Twice?

by Karl Kurtz

New York's musical chairs situation in which Lt. Governor David Paterson will become governor and Senate Majority Leader and President Pro Tempore Joe Bruno will become acting lieutenant governor raises a curious question reported on by The New York Times blog, City Beat: "In a Senate Tie, Could Bruno Vote Twice?" 

In other words, could Senator Bruno vote once as a senator and then again, in the event of a tie, as the lieutenant governor who by constitution has a tie-breaking vote?  The issue is of considerable interest in New York because of the narrow 32-30 margin for the Republicans in the Senate.  This situation of the temporary Senate president also serving as lieutenant governor will persist through the elections of 2008, in which all New York senators are up for election, until the next gubernatorial election in 2010.  If the Senate were to be tied after the 2008 elections, this question would become critical and could determine which party holds the majority.

Not surprisingly, this issue is a matter of some dispute in New York.  According to the Times posting, Republicans say that the pro tem would have two votes, while the Democrats say no, he would not.  The experts are uncertain.

This has led inevitably to a question from New York to NCSL: What is the practice in other states on this matter?  The short answer is that Pennsylvania appears to be the only other state where it might be possible for a senator/acting lieutenant governor to vote twice.  For the long answer, read below the jump.

Legislative Adjournment Season Begins

by Karl Kurtz

NCSL's nifty new 50-state legislative session calendar map gives you a quick overview of which states are in session and which are not.  A glance at this map shows that legislative adjournment season is upon us as four states now have gone dark: New Mexico, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.  The Washington, Virginia, Indiana and South Dakota legislatures are all scheduled to adjourn sine die within the next week.

Last year, in our sine die series in The Thicket, we tried to write a short 3-4 paragraph summary of each state's session with links to newspaper stories.  The reason for writing our own wrapup is that those newspaper links sometimes disappear into inaccessible archives.  That task ate us up, though, as we weren't able to keep up with all 50 states.  This year we'll confine ourselves to periodically lumping together into a single post states that have recently adjourned and providing at least one link to a summary of the session.  If the links go away after a few weeks, there's nothing we can do about it.

• New Mexico was the first state to adjourn its legislature in 2008 on February 13.  The headline of an AP story,  "Legislature adjourns, governor plans special session," refers to the likelihood that Gov. Richardson will call a special session this summer to deal with health care issues that were unresolved in the regular session.
• The Utah Legislature adjourned on March 5.  See "On Legislature's last day, some bills beat clock, others did not" in The Salt Lake Tribune.  Long-time Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich announced that he would not run for reelection after 40 years of service in the Utah Legislature.
• The Wyoming Legislature adjourned its 2008 budget-only session on March 6. See "Lawmakers grade budget session" in the Casper Star Tribune.
• Lincoln Walks at Midnight, the curiously named nonpartisan blog on West Virginia politics, posted Sifting through the 2008 session containing a series of links to end of session newspaper stories after the March 8 adjournment of the West Virginia Legislature.

First African-American Woman Speaker

by Karl Kurtz

California Assembly Democrats have chosen Karen Bass, currently the majority leader, to be the next speaker of the Assembly.  Making the eminently safe assumptions that she is re-elected to the Legislature in November and that the Democrats maintain control of the Assembly, she will be the first female African-American to serve as speaker of a state legislature--but not the first African-American presiding officer regardless of gender.

One of her 10 opponents for speaker among Democrats, Assemblymember Fiona Ma, said of Bass, "She demonstrates a grace under pressure and a quiet competence that will serve the Assembly well."

Bass' selection as the next speaker closes out the cycle of new leadership selection in California as a result of the defeat of an initiative earlier this month that would have extended the terms of current leaders.

Update, February 29: Today brings a more thorough AP story on the designation of Karen Bass as the next Assembly speaker.

N.C. Speaker Joe Hackney...and our Friends at Governing

by Karl Kurtz and Meagan Dorsch

Speaking of Ballot Box (see previous entry) Alan Greenblatt also has a nice piece about NCSL President-elect and North Carolina Speaker Joe (not Jim!) Hackney donating an award that he received from NCSL and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation to a school.  In that posting Alan worries that his only loyal readers are NCSL staff.  Sounds like you need a hug, Alan!  We can't do that, but with this post we'll try to send some of The Thicket's seven, maybe 8 (that's an inside NCSL joke) loyal readers your way.

At the same time that Karl wrote the above paragraph, Meagan was writing her own story about Speaker Hackney.  Since her version includes more detail than the Ballot Box story, we're including it here, too.

North Carolina Speaker of the House, Joe Hackney, has donated $10,000 in prize money to his former school, Silk Hope Elementary. The school has plans to use that money to build an outdoor classroom and dining space and to purchase a new projector and screen.

Speaker Hackney is the President Elect of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Last July at NCSL's Annual Meeting in Boston, Speaker Hackney won the 2007 Excellence in State Legislative Leadership Award. As part of the award, Speaker Hackney was given the money to direct to a charity of his choice. Hackney was chosen by an independent, non-partisan selection committee, comprised of members from NCSL, the State Legislative Leadership Foundation, journalists, former legislators and scholars.

According to a press release by Speaker Hackney's office, he grew up on a farm near Silk Hope and graduated from Silk Hope School in 1963, when it was a community school with grades 1-12. The last high school class from Silk Hope graduated in 1963.

Silk Hope's principal Janice Frazier said about $3,000 dollars will be used to build a patio and add tables near the school's cafeteria, which will also be used as a classroom. The rest of the money, roughly $7,000 dollars will be used to buy a screen and projector for the school's multipurpose room.

Rep. Hackney has been in the legislature since 1980 and was elected speaker in January 2007.

Update on New York Senate Special Election

by Karl Kurtz

The AP has an analysis, "Upstate race pivotal to Senate's future," of the New York Senate special election that we reported on yesterday.  And at Governing's new political blog, Ballot Box, Alan Greenblatt makes an appropriately tart comment about how the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee trumpeted the Democratic win in upstate New York primarily as a boon to the next round of redistricting.

A Test for Presiding Officers?

by Karl Kurtz

Today's Sacramento Bee has a story, "Speaker race is a Capitol brawl," about the 10 candidates seeking to replace termed-out California Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and their tactics in the campaign.  The Assembly Democratic caucus is scheduled to make its choice on March 11.

Check out the comment to that story submitted by a reader who suggests that rather than sending out roses on Valentines Day, the candidates for speaker should have to take a test prepared by the chief clerk on the rules of the Assembly .  Hmm, maybe the American Society of Legislative Clerks and Secretaries should establish a committee to design such a test for prospective presiding officers across the country.  (Just kidding!)

Next President Pro Tem Anointed in Sacramento

by Karl Kurtz

Yesterday Sen. Darrell Steinberg (photo collage from his website) was chosen by the California Senate Democratic caucus to become the next president pro tem after the session ends this year.  This decision took place just two days after California voters rejected a proposal to modify the state's legislative term limits that would have allowed the current presiding officers, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, to continue in office.  The speed with which Senate Democrats reached their decision was a surprise, but Sen. Steinberg's victory was widely anticipated.

Assembly Democrats also caucused yesterday and decided that they would resolve a contest among as many as eight possible members to become the next speaker on March 11.

Should Committee Chairs Get Paid More?

by Tim Storey

Many legislators would say that setting their own pay is the most radioactive issue they ever address.  States vary considerably in how they compensate state legislators for the work they do.  And of course, the job of being a legislator differs from state to state, so it is only natural that salaries would be all over the proverbial map. 

Washington State takes the most analytical, and methodologically rigorous approach to setting legislative compensation.  In 1986, Washington voters approved the establishment of the  Washington Citizens' Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials, which has the authority to set legislative salaries as well as the pay of the governor and other elected officials.  The commission researches pay for similar jobs and analyzes market data as well as what other states pay comparable elected officials.  The Commission relies on a standard approach that most large private sector employers take to determine pay levels for employees.  This is also the model that NCSL frequently employs to study legislative staff compensation.

A number of states recognize that there are different levels of legislative work within the legislature and provide additional pay to leaders and committee chairs.  Whether to offer differential pay to committee chairs continued to come up in Washington, so the Commission hired a consultant to recommend whether chairs and leaders should receive a stipend in addition to the regular salary.  Just as NCSL does when studying staff compensation, the consultant performed a job content evaluation based on various criteria. 

The consultant's report, Legislative Leadership Stipend Study, concludes that Washington committee chairs do not have enough additional responsibilities and duties to merit more pay than rank and file members and that providing extra compensation could make internal management of the legislature more complicated.  The consultant noted that different legislators may perform the task of chairing a committee very differently.  And the consultant reported that a "clear preponderance of opinion from the interviewees (mostly legislators)" was opposed to providing stipends to chairs and other leaders beyond those already receiving them. 

New Speaker in Oklahoma

by Karl Kurtz

Rep. Chris Benge (photo) was elected speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives on the opening day of session yesterday, replacing Rep. Lance Cargill who stepped down as speaker last week after news stories that he had failed to file state and federal tax returns for several years.  Rep. Gus Blackwell, who had been speaker pro tem and served as interim speaker for a few days, withdrew from the race for speaker after it was revealed that he, too, had been late in making property tax payments.

Rep. Benge previously served as chair of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee.   In a show of bipartisan spirit, the House minority leader, Danny Morgan, withdrew his name from nomination for speaker, making the vote for Benge unanimous.  Benge named Rep. Rick Miller to head the appropriations committee.

New Leaders for 2008

[Ed. note: We have fallen woefully behind in keeping readers of The Thicket up to date on leadership changes in legislatures across the country.  So today we are playing catch-up.  Bakur Kvaratskhelia comes from the country of Georgia and is a LEAP Fellow working at NCSL and the Colorado Senate.]

by Bakur Kvaratskhelia

Peter Groff (photo) is the first African-American to be elected President of the Colorado Senate. He replaced the first woman Senate President, Joan Fitz-Gerald, who resigned to devote full-time to a campaign for Congress. Groff's father, Regis Groff, previously served in the Senate from 1974 to 1994 including many years as minority leader.

Four states had elections in November 2007, leading to a few leadership changes:

• Republican representative Jim Tucker is the first Republican to become Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives since Reconstruction. Sen. Joel Chaisson (D) was elected senate president. Tucker and Chaisson replaced leaders who were forced out by term limits.
• In Mississippi Republican Phil Bryant was elected lieutenant governor and will preside over the Senate. Bryant replaced Amy Tuck, the second woman elected to statewide office in Mississippi.
• New Jersey Senate Democrats  elected Stephen Sweeney as Senate majority leader. He replaced retiring Sen. Bernard F. Kenny. Republicans also chose a new leader, tapping Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr., to head the Senate minority, replacing Sen. Leonard Lance.
• Sen. Richard Saslaw (D) moved from minority to majority leader in the Virginia Senate. Now in the minority, Virginia Republicans named Senator Tommy Norment as their leader replacing Sen. Walter Stosch.

New Mexico Senate President Pro Tem Ben Altamirano (photo) died on December 27, 2007 after having served in the State Senate since 1971. He was the top Senate leader since 2005 and before that was the longtime chair of the finance committee. Democrat Tim Jennings was elected to fill the Senate's top job on January 15 when the New Mexico Senate started its 30-day session.

Other changes in presiding officers, majority and minority leaders since the end of 2007 sessions include:

• Oregon House Republicans elected Representative Bruce Hanna as minority leader replacing Wayne Scott who left the legislature.
• Democratic Representative Brad King of Price became the new minority leader in the Utah House of Representatives in November 2007 after Ralph Becker was elected mayor of Salt Lake City.
• In Wisconsin Sen. Russ Decker replaced Sen. Judy Robson as Senate Majority Leader in a surprise move in the Democratic caucus in October 2007 as a result of dissatisfaction with the budget negotiation process.

Need for a Longer Term Perspective on California Term Limits

by Karl Kurtz

Amid all the hoopla about super-dooper Tuesday next week, there is an important legislative institutional change on the ballot in California.  Proposition 93 would change the state's current lifetime term limits of six years in the Assembly and eight years in the Senate to a total of 12 years, regardless of the chamber in which a member serves.

From an institutional perspective and based on the research that we have done on term limits, this is a change that makes sense. It would mitigate one of the more negative effects of term limits: the tendency of senates to become the more experienced body and therefore dominant over the houses of representatives (or assemblies).  In California, for example, since term limits have taken effect, consistently over 90% of the members of the Senate have previously served in the Assembly.  Almost all Assembly leaders and committee chairs, on the other hand, have little or no previous legislative experience. 

The 12-year total limit would give members who want to get things done in the legislature an incentive to build their career in one chamber or the other, thereby removing the Senate's experience advantage over the Assembly.

But regardless of whether or not this is a good idea or a bad one, it drives me nuts that much of the opposition to Proposition 93 is based on the fact that approval would mean that Speaker Fabian Núñez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata would be eligible to continue in their current offices instead of being term-limited. For example, see this report from the Sacramento Bee:

Opponents paint Proposition 93 as a thinly veiled scheme by Núñez and Perata to save their jobs. Retaining the status quo is senseless and self-defeating, they claim.

"This is a Legislature whose leadership has repeatedly broken its promises and failed to deliver results on a wide range of issues," said Kevin Spillane, spokesman for No on 93. 

The attacks on these leaders are very personal and are reminiscent of some of the original 1990s campaigns in favor of term limits that made bogey-men of Speaker Willie Brown in California, Speaker Vernal Riffe in Ohio and Speaker John Martin in Maine.

Admittedly, the fact that Speaker Núñez and Senator Perata are behind the initiative, that they have raised money for it, and that the proposition is not prospective so that it would not apply to them encourages this line of opposition.

But, say what you will on either side of this proposition, it is a potentially important institutional change in California state government.  It should be fought out on the basis of what's good for the state in 20 or 40 years (when the current speaker and president pro tem will be long gone), not in a two or four year perspective.

Oregon Court Dismisses Challenge to Special Session

by Larry Morandi

In January 2007, the Oregon Legislature approved a resolution to experiment with annual sessions (see "Oregon Legislature Adopts Annual Sessions, Sort of").  On January 28, 2008 an Oregon circuit court turned down a challenge to the special legislative session scheduled for start on February 4.  Oregon State Senator Larry George argued that special sessions can only be called for emergencies and that declaring an "emergency" through Senate Concurrent Resolution 1 a year ago circumvented the constitution's prescription for biennial sessions and amounted to a "supplemental" session.

Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Jeff Merkley contended the court had no jurisdiction in the case; that Article IV, section 10 of the constitution "vests with the Legislative Assembly the sole and unreviewable discretion to determine whether a special session is warranted pursuant to its emergency powers."  The court disagreed and framed the issue as "whether the Oregon legislature has properly complied with the provisions of the Oregon Constitution in calling itself into this forthcoming special session."

Judge Lipscomb determined that the resolution by itself was not adequate to trigger the legislature's emergency powers, but that a formal notice issued by leadership on January 18, 2008 provided the necessary legal backing.  Oregon Revised Statutes § 171.015 requires written notice justifying the need for a special session and Judge Lipscomb found it sufficient.  The case will be reviewed by the Oregon Supreme Court with a decision likely by February 1.      

Oklahoma House Speaker Resigns

by Karl Kurtz

Oklahoma House Speaker Lance Cargill, at 36 the youngest speaker in the country, resigned from his leadership position today after reports last week that he had failed to file his income tax returns in 2006 and 2007.  He will remain a member of the Oklahoma House.

Speaker Pro Tem Gus Blackwell will succeed Cargill on an interim basis until a new speaker is selected when the Oklahoma Legislature convenes next Monday, Feb. 4.  From NewsOK.com:

The Oklahoman reported that Cargill failed to file his 2005 and 2006 personal income tax returns until getting a warning from the Oklahoma Tax Commission. He blamed an accountant and said he was upset with himself because he was due refunds.

The Oklahoman also reported that Cargill was delinquent six years in a row in paying the property tax on his Harrah law office. He was months overdue in paying most of the bills. "I take full responsibility for this error," he said Friday about his property tax bills. "I certainly apologize to the people of Oklahoma and to my colleagues, and will take steps to ensure these matters are handled in a timely and efficient manner in the future.”

For lots more on the resignation and speculation as to who the next speaker will be, see The McCarville Report Online.

NCSL Leaders Participate in State of the Union

by Karl Kurtz

NCSL’s immediate past president, Senator Leticia Van de Putte of Texas, has the honor of delivering the Spanish language response to President George W. Bush’s State of the Union message today.  It will be broadcast on Spanish language stations across the country.  She will do this in partnership with Kansas Governor Katherine Sebelius, who will make the English language response.

In a nice symbolic display of bipartisanship, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has invited NCSL president Donna Stone (right in photo), a Republican member of the Delaware House of Representatives, to join Sen. Van de Putte (left) in the speaker’s gallery for the State of the Union message.

Both women are thrilled, and it is an unprecedented recognition of NCSL and the role that it plays in our federal system.  Look for Rep. Stone and Sen. Van de Putte in the crowd shots and tune in on your local Spanish language station after the President’s speech.