The Thicket at State Legislatures

There is a List for That Tweet

by Meagan Dorsch

This month, Twitter unveiled a new feature called Lists. It's a way for you to organize your followers or the people you are following on Twitter. 

The National Conference of State Legislatures tweets daily under NCSLCOMM (this site is operated out of our communications division, hence the COMM) and we have decided to put this new list feature to good use.

On our Twitter page, we have made our "lists" available to our followers. You can now find state legislators, legislative staff, caucuses and NCSL staff on Twitter. We would be remiss if we did not thank NCSL policy staff and the Legislative Information and Communications Staff Section (LINCS) at NCSL for helping us compile these Twitter addresses.

We know that we were not able to capture every state legislator or caucus that is active on Twitter, so this is where your help comes in. Please send us a direct message on Twitter (or reply to this blog) and let us know where to find your lawmaker or staffer.

We hope you enjoy and use our "lists" and we look forward to adding more names in the coming weeks.

Follow NCSL on Twitter and Facebook and Ning!

Legislators Serve Military and State

by NCSL Staff

As the United States fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a handful of state legislators are serving in their state's National Guard or Reserve units while holding elected office, according to a new survey from the National Network of Legislators in the Military and the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Currently, 65 state legislators serve in the U.S. military in reserve units or National Guard units. Of those 65 state legislators in the military, 31 have been deployed to another country while also serving in their respective statehouse.

Although there are no federal laws that prohibit state lawmakers from serving on active duty with the military, there are specific requirements for lawmakers who are activated and/or deployed. A Department of Defense directive, revised on Feb. 19, 2008, generally prohibits a full-time military service member on active duty from holding civil office in state government. For reserve members on active duty service for 270 days or less, this directive allows members to hold an elected office "provided there is no interference with the performance of military duties." Since September 11, 2001, increasing numbers of National Guard and Reserve members have been called up for longer and more frequent tours of duty.

Recognizing the difficulties elected officials who are called to active duty may face, state legislators have introduced legislation that addresses maintaining the elected position of the public official.

Enacted this year, Arkansas specified that an elected official retains the public office upon returning from active military duty. In 2008, Louisiana allowed for temporary successors to be appointed if a legislator is called to active duty for more than 180 days and Maine exempted National Guard members from the law prohibiting an unclassified employee of the executive branch from being a candidate for elective office in a partisan public election.

In 2004, Indiana established a procedure for an elected office to take a leave of absence when called to active duty and for the appointment of a person to temporarily perform the officeholder’s duties during the leave. Click here to review the 2003-2009 state legislation.

For more information on state legislators serving in the military, read NCSL press release.

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?   

The Fiscal Outlook for Higher Education

by Brenda Bautsch

2009 was a tough year for states in terms of funding higher education, and 2010 does not look any better.

The recession has made fiscal conditions worse in the states, and while the federal stimulus funds have helped, states know that those funds will end soon. According to Joni Finney, Vice President on the National Center of Public Policy on Higher Education and a professor at practice at the University of Pennsylvania, most states do not have a plan for funding higher education in the long term.

In this edition of the Buzz, we sit down with Professor Finney to talk about hope for the future. Finney says it is going to take leadership to make sure that states have a plan to fund higher education in the long term. She also says thinking outside of the box might help states find a solution in these unprecedented times.

Listen to this podcast and our other podcasts on college completion rates with David Longanecker and federal policies and programs with the Deputy Under Secretary of Education.

What Federal Policies and Programs Can Help States Improve College Completion?

by Brenda Bautsch

President Barack Obama recently announced his goal of having the United States become number one in the world in terms of the number of adults with postsecondary degrees. This is a spot the United States once held, but in today's global economy, has slipped away.

The topic of college completion was the focus of the 6th annual Higher Education Institute in Denver, Colorado. The meeting was held by the National Conference of State Legislatures and allowed legislators from across the country the opportunity to come and share what their state is doing in terms of boosting higher education graduation rates.

Bob Shireman, Deputy Under Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, spoke to lawmakers about what the federal government is doing today, and what it plans to do in the future, to improve college access and success for everyone.

In this podcast, I was able to sit down with Deputy Under Secretary Shireman and talk to him about federal government action to secure loans and grants for college students and some upcoming reform that could make a postsecondary education more affordable. Shireman also talks about the higher education bill that Congress is working on, and how it could bolster college success.

Listen to this podcast (4:53) and our previous podcast on college completion rates with David Longanecker.

 

College Completion Rates: Room for Improvement

by Brenda Bautsch

When you compare higher education completion rates in the United States to the rest of the world, we fall behind. But that hasn't always been the case.

The National Conference of State Legislatures recently held the 6th annual Higher Education Institute in Denver, Colorado. Improving college completion was the focus of the two day meeting with legislators from across the country.

David Longanecker, president of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, attended the meeting and provided some great insight into what states can do to graduate more students from college.

In this edition of the Buzz, I sat down with Mr. Longanecker to get his perspective on how the United States can once again lead the world in the number of adults with college degrees. He says it's a goal we cannot accomplish by relying just on high school graduates—we must also focus on adult education. Longanecker also talks about performance-based funding and why he thinks this might help legislatures and states boost the number of students who finish college.

Listen to the podcast (4:41) and let us know if your state is making higher education a priority.

Decline in Statehouse Reporting Places Burden on Nonpartisan Staff

by Karl Kurtz

Joe Turner is retiring after 20 years as the statehouse reporter in Olympia for the Tacoma News Tribune.  In "'Joe Turner's Come and Gone,'" (a title deliberately borrowed from an August Wilson play) he writes an engaging and touching farewell to his profession, lamenting, as have so many, the decline of statehouse reporting.   He includes an unusual song of praise for the nonpartisan staff whom he relied upon for many years:

The erosion of the statehouse press corps puts an additional burden on another group of people to keep the public adequately informed. They are the nonpartisan staff on whom I have relied so heavily for the past 20 years.

Most readers know nothing of these people. They are lawyers, mostly. They are smart, all of them. They are the committee staffers, the ones who actually research and write the bills and laws that are sponsored by elected representatives and senators. And because they work for two sets of masters (Democrats and Republicans), they must walk the straight and narrow. I trust them.

I learned their value early on, in 1990 when I began covering transportation issues (a 5-cent gas tax increase) at the state level. The late-Rep. Ruth Fisher of Tacoma was chairwoman of the House Transportation Committee and she instructed her committee staff to give me whatever I needed.

“If he’s going to be writing about transportation, make sure he understands what he’s writing about,” Fisher said, in that gruff, abrupt manner that was her trademark.

It is in the hands of those kinds of people that I leave you. Without the combination of reporters and non-partisan staff, our citizens would be in real trouble. You see, we reporters know so little of what actually is going on in government. It’s true....

A rose from The Thicket to Brad Hendrickson.

News reporting changes, and yet stays the same

by Michelle Blackston

In this edition of NCSL's The Buzz, it's time to highlight another statehouse reporter I caught up with at the 2009 Capitol Beat Reporter conference.

Peter Wong is the capitol bureau chief of the Oregon Statesman Journal. In this interview, he talks about the changing nature of statehouse reporting and shares some of the tools he uses for cultivating stories.

While much of the hype surrounds social media and online social networks, Wong said he's not there yet. He finds much of the online debate in blogs to be more about politics than policy. But Wong will be the first to admit that he still reads blogs to say attune to the debate.

From there, the information in blogs might lead Wong to pursue his own story with on-the-ground research and in-person interviews. There is much to be said for one-on-one interactions and hand-shake meetings, Wong says in this interview with me during the reporter's conference. 

Listen to the Buzz and don't forget to check out the numerous political blogs highlighted on The Thicket.

Movies about Ethical Dilemmas

by Peggy Kerns

Want another top 10 movie list? Try this one: The Top Ten Best Ethics Films by Carla Miller and Don McClintock at CityEthics.org. Their favorites include familiar ones like A Man for All Seasons, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (this movie makes every list), 1984, Bulworth and one I hadn't heard of—The Ideal Husband.

To this top 10 list, I'm going to add two of my favorites.  But first, what makes a movie an "ethics movie?"

Simply put, ethics is about doing the right thing. Doing the right thing can be based on laws or values. At NCSL's Center for Ethics in Government, we discuss both types. We track, research and publish information on the Web about ethics laws in all 50 states. In our training sessions, we present ethics as values—how people behave and the ethical conflicts they have, based on moral duties and values.

Dilemmas in these two categories play out differently. Public officials usually are not conflicted about law-based ethics, called right-versus-wrong dilemmas. They obey their state's ethics laws and, therefore, act in a legal way. Dilemmas based on values may be tougher to solve. Ethical dilemmas occur when the choice is between two ethical values, called right-versus-right dilemmas. Both choices may be ethically "right," but the person can pick only one way.

Movies that deal with the conflicts between competing ethical values are ethics films, and they are rich sources for training programs.

I like two movies that are not on the CityEthics.org list: Brubaker (1980) and The Insider (1999). Both contain strong right-versus-right ethical dilemmas based on true stories.

Brubaker is a raw film starring a young Robert Redford. Brubaker is a fictional character based on the experiences of Arkansas prison warden Thomas O. Murton who is hired by then-Governor Winthrop Rockefeller to reform the state correctional system. He embarks on a crusade that uncovers awful conditions, corruption, extortion, and horrific prison torture.

Movies Reveal Public Perceptions of Congress

by Karl Kurtz

From The Dirksen Congressional Center comes a new lesson plan on "The Public's View of Congress: A Study in Contrast Through Film," prepared by René M. Lafayette, Northbridge High School, Whitinsville, MA. 

The four films selected to share for comparison begin with the 1939 classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (released approximately 45 days after the start of World War II), then the 1972 film The Candidate, followed seven years later by The Seduction of Joe Tynan and finally the 1996 documentary A Perfect Candidate. The common theme that runs throughout the 57 years spanning the oldest film to the most recent is, in a word, “disappointment.”

Hollywood’s portrayal of our Federal lawmakers seems to validate the cynical view most Americans have about Congress. Although not used in this lesson, even the most recent (2007) film which centered on a Member of Congress (Charlie Wilson’s War) presents the viewer with mixed, at best, signals about the film’s “hero” (a hard-drinking, drug-using, womanizing Texas Democrat). Wilson as portrayed by Tom Hanks, is as much at ease navigating through the interagency intrigues of the Central Intelligence Agency as he is nude in a Las Vegas hot tub with equally non-attired strippers/escorts in the film’s opening scene. Enough said?

There is always great interest in the 1933 classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Many high school juniors and seniors find Stewart’s character believable. They may also appreciate a simpler lifestyle and story line. In any event, all four films include dashed innocence or naiveté lost when faced with fundamental moral or ethical challenges. There is usually considerable discussion after a film’s viewing as to why anyone would want to enter public life. Point out the alternatives to such a position.

For more about how movies portray American politics, see "Videos on State Politics" and other links in that posting.