The Thicket at State Legislatures

Rare State Legislative Primary Defeat for Incumbent in California

by Karl Kurtz

Yesterday was state primary election day in California.  In a highly unusual event (the last time was 12 years ago), incumbent state Sen. Carole Migden was defeated in a Democratic primary in San Francisco by Assemblymember Mark Leno (photo).  In most term-limited states, and especially California, quality challenges to incumbent legislators are rare because most ambitious challengers wait for term limits to open up a seat.  But Leno was termed out in the Assembly, and Migden's highly publicized campaign finance irregularites and personal foibles made her an inviting target, despite the fact that she had won elected offices for 18 years and served as chair of both the Assembly and Senate budget committees. 

Because the Senate seat has a heavy Democratic advantage in registration, Leno is likely to win this Senate seat in November.  See today's Sacramento Bee for a rundown on that race as well as the two property rights initiatives on the ballot.

In an aside, as the presidential race has turned out, imagine what the stakes would have been if California had not pushed its presidential primary up to super Tuesday and kept it with the state primary in June!

Fixing a Deficit in State Legislative Experience in the Presidency

by Karl Kurtz

In Governing's Ballot Box blog today, Alan Greenblatt notes that it is rare in modern political history that former state legislators become president and that Sen. Barack Obama's claiming of his party's nomination for the presidency means that "...now every state legislator in the country -- all 7.400 of them -- can, like U.S. senators, look in the mirror and see a potential president."

In January 2007 in The Thicket we noted that six of 19 declared candidates for president in the 2008 election were former state legislators.  How soon we forget Tancredo, Gravel, Vilsack, Thompson and Kucinich, leaving only Obama as a presidential candidate with state legislative credentials.  We have also written in "State Legislators who Became President" about how 22 of 43 (51 percent) presidents are former state or colonial legislators but that there have been only five since 1900.

This reminded me that in 1994 I had proposed a fundamental change in American government that would have had the sure-fire effect of producing presidents who had backgrounds in state government: requiring that all candidates for federal office have previous state legislative experience.  The piece was entitled "Reinventing Federalism" and was based on a hypothetical question that U.S. District Court Judge William L. Dwyer had asked both sides in a constitutional challenge to Washington state's limit on the terms of members of Congress: If states can make experience a disqualification for federal office (i.e. term limits), then could they impose an experience requirement as a qualification for office? 

I pounced on this idea and, tongue-mostly-in-cheek, urged that "State legislatures across the nation should immediately initiate state constitutional amendments requiring six years of state legislative service for anyone who runs for the U.S. House of Represenatives, Senate or president."  I spun this fantasy out into a number of variations that would strengthen American federalism by repairing damage done by the establishment of direct election of senators in the 17th Amendment. I concluded with the idea that the combination of term limits for members of Congress and experience requirements for federal office would mean that: "The best and the brightest state legislators would have someplace to go at the end of their terms, and Congress and the presidency would be replenished with experienced and committed practitioners of federalism."

Had the states taken me up on my proposal, then neither John McCain nor Hillary Clinton would have been eligible for the 2008 nomination for president.  That's not a knock on them; it's only a daydream of a state legislative junkie.

State Legislative Primary Elections in Texas and Ohio

by Tim Storey

Ohio and Texas held legislative primaries yesterday, and it appears that there were relatively few surprises. 

Unofficial results show that a handful of incumbent Texas legislators lost in their effort to return.  Those included Democratic Representatives Kevin Bailey, Juan Escobar, Borris Miles, and Paul Moreno.  On the Republican side, incumbent Representatives Corbin Van Arsdale, Pat Haggerty and Thomas Latham all lost.  One race that saw about 30,000 total votes cast is likely headed to a recount.  Incumbent GOP Representative Nathan Macias trailed by 38 votes after initial vote tallies.

It does not appear that any sitting Texas Senators lost primary elections yesterday. 

The big question is whether these incumbent losses will affect the heated battle for Speaker of the Texas House.  The Austin American Statesman has a great wrap-up that seems to conclude that Speaker Craddick is positioned to retain his leadership post. 

And one Democratic Texas legislator earned the right to be an underdog this fall.  State Representative Rick Noriega won the Democratic primary and will challenge incumbent Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn.  The last time a Democrat won statewide in Texas was 1994. 

In Ohio, term limits fueled a wave of state legislators running for Congress, and several of them won primary bids on Tuesday.  In the Republican primary for U.S. House district 5, State Representative Bob Latta won big.  State Senator Steve Austria won the Republican primary in Congressional district 7 that is being vacated by retiring Congressman Dave Hobson.  In another open U.S. House seat, two legislators will face off in the fall to replace Ralph Regula (R).  Democratic State Senator John Boccieri will run against Republican State Senator Kirk Schuring for Ohio U.S. House district 16.

The next round of statewide legislative primaries are 47 days away on April 22nd in Pennsylvania. 

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.

California Ballot Measures Thwart Legislature on Term Limits, Support it on Tribal Gaming

by Jennie Bowser

Of the 24 states that held presidential primaries and caucuses yesterday, only California also had statewide measures on the ballot. California voters considered seven statewide ballot measures yesterday. Three were citizen initiatives on term limits, gas taxes and community colleges, and all three failed to pass. The remaining four were popular referenda on tribal gaming issues, and all four passed.

The most closely-watched measure in California was Proposition 93, an initiative proposing to modify California's legislative term limits. California was one of the first states to pass legislative term limits, and has some of the strictest limits in the nation. Legislators may serve up to six years in the Assembly and eight years in the Senate, then are barred for life from further legislative service. Prop. 93 would have decreased the total years a legislator could serve from 14 to 12, but removed the chamber-specific limits, allowing a legislator the option to serve all 12 years in a single chamber.

Despite an aggressive campaign from proponents and the endorsement of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Prop. 93 was defeated by a margin of 53-47. This is a closer margin than we've seen with previous attempts to modify legislative term limits. A 2000 initiative in California received just 40% of the vote, and legislative proposals in Arkansas (2004), Maine (2007) and Montana (2004) all polled in the low 30s. States that may consider modifications to term limits in November 2008 include Arkansas and Michigan. For more information on legislative term limits, visit NCSL's term limits page.

The four questions on California's ballot that passed were popular referenda dealing with tribal gaming compacts. The legislature passed amendments to the compacts with four different tribes, allowing for additional slot machines and exempting certain projects from the California Environmental Quality Act. The popular referenda were placed on the ballot via a petition process in an attempt to block the legislature's amendments. The "yes" votes on all four popular referenda mean that voters approve of the legislature's amendments, and they will now take effect. Yes, it's confusing, but in this case, a "yes" vote means that the backers of the popular referenda failed in their attempt to overturn the legislature's tribal gaming compact amendments.

Two other citizen initiatives on California's presidential primary ballot also failed to pass yesterday. Prop. 91 would have earmarked certain gasoline tax revenues for the transportation fund, and required repayment from the general fund of all such revenues deposited since 2003. Prop. 92 would have altered the governance and funding for the state's community colleges.

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.

Poll Results: Increased Partisanship in Legislatures

Our poll about the causes of increased partisanship in legislatures, which was based on the posting, "Things Ain't What They Used to Be and Never Were,"  was probably the most complicated question that we have posed in The Thicket.  The question read, "Many believe that partisanship in legislatures has increased, and civility and camaraderie have declined.  What is the primary cause of this in your state?"

Seventy-six readers responded to the question. Thirty-five (46%) of you said that the cause was increased partisanship nationally, 12 (16%) chose ethics laws/term limits, 8 (11%) picked general changes in social relationships, 7 (9%) blamed the media, and 4 (5%) clicked on greater diversity/complexity of society and government.  The remaining 10 (13%) respondents disagreed with the premise of the question, presumably because they don't believe that partisanship, civility and camaraderie have declined in their state's legislature.

"Things ain't what they used to be and never were."

by Karl Kurtz

The airplane home to Denver from Washington Reagan airport last Thursday night was a "congressional special."  There were at least half a dozen current or former members of Congress on the flight from the Colorado delegation or other parts of the west.  On the jetway waiting to board the plane I asked one of them, a former member of the California Legislature, what the prospects were for Congress and the President reaching agreement on appropriations bills for the year.  He threw up his hands and said, "The leadership of both parties has lost the ability to compromise!  They're too busy trying to score political points off of each other.  I'm frustrated by it.  Some of us have talked to our leadership about it, but we don't get anyplace.  They say, 'yeah, yeah, we hear you,' and then turn around and start bashing the other guys again."

That immediately put me in mind of several other recent stories on problems of partisanship, lack of camaraderie and inability to compromise in legislatures.  I asked this member of Congress  if he had read Lee Hamilton's commentary, "Why not Try Genuine Consultation," on this very subject.  He had not seen that one, but we had both read  about a California conference featuring former legislative leaders talking about how to improve California state government, "Capitol leaders past and present: Look to the good old days."

The subhead on that Sacramento Bee story captures it fairly well: "What's missing?  Booze, backrooms and bonding, they say."  Former California legislative leaders like Willie Brown, Pete Wilson, Jim Brulte and John Burton variously lamented that the old-time social bonding of legislators of both parties at evening dinners, receptions and poker parties has fallen by the wayside under strict ethics laws and term limits.  The personal friendships that they built up at night across party lines helped them to resolve policy conflicts during the day, they said.  They also talked about the value of being able to negotiate behind closed doors in ways that are much more difficult to do today.  These leaders were echoing themes that appear in the new biography of former California Speaker Jesse Unruh.

The congressman and I parted company (he to score an upgrade in business class and I to steerage--a middle seat in the back) before we could finish talking about these stories of the "good old days."  But I have a few more thoughts to share. 

First, the Bee and the organization that sponsored the conference, the  Public Policy Institute of California, anchored this story in public approval ratings of the legislature of 34 percent (click to enlarge the chart of public opinion), which they regard as very low.  Well, I have been collecting public opinion polls about perceptions of state legislatures for 20 years, and I would say those numbers aren't bad.  Scores between 35 and 45 percent approval are fairly typical across the states and over time.  People just don't think highly of the legislative process (if they think of it at all) no matter what they do.

[Read below the jump to find out the author of the quote that titles this post.]

Who Runs, Who Doesn't Run and the Shrinking Congress

by Karl Kurtz

Today's newspapers bring three good legislative institutional stories:

• A Sacramento Bee article, "All in the (Capitol) Family," about how legislative seats are being passed around among family members in California, in part because of term limits.  It features the odd twist of Sen. Dean Florez' mother running for her son's old Assembly seat.
• A New York Times article, "For Retiring Republicans, Several Explanations," about three Ohio Republican members of Congress--David Hobson (photo), Ralph Regula (both Hobson and Regula were "cardinals" on the appropriations committee and previously served in leadership positions in the Ohio Senate) and Deborah Pryce--who are choosing not to seek reelection in 2008.  The story talks about the unnamed reason that it's not as much fun to be in the minority than the majority.  But it doesn't mention that Democrats experienced the same problem of a large number of retirements after losing the majority in Congress in 1994.
• A New York Times "editorial observer" column by Adam Cohen, "Honey, They Shrunk the Congress," about how presidential aggressiveness and congressional timidity have diminished the power of Congress as the preeminent, first branch of government.

New Study of the Effects of Term Limits Published

by Karl Kurtz

Department of shameless self-congratulation and -promotion: The 23 academic political scientists and staffers for NCSL, the Council of State Governments and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation who participated in the four-year Joint Project on Term Limits are pleased that our book, Institutional Change in American Politics: The Case of Term Limits, reporting the results of our research has now been published by University of Michigan Press.  The book was edited by Bruce Cain of University of California, Berkeley, Richard G. Niemi of University of Rochester and myself.

You can find a summary and table of contents for the book here and nice blurbs about it here (we especially liked the one by Bernard Grofman). And if you prefer, you can read Coping with Term Limits: A Practical Guide, a 30-pp. condensed version of the book (which is 230 pp.) aimed at practitioners rather than academics.  We blogged about the release of Coping with Term Limits a year ago.

Institutional Change in American Politics is #436,005 on Amazon.com's best-seller list.  Don't look for an authors' tour at a bookstore near you anytime soon.

Nebraska Completes Legislative Session with Lots of New Members

by Janna Goodwin

On May 31, Nebraska senators ended the first session of the 100th Legislature. The 2007 session has been hailed as historic as term limits yielded 22 new senators (out of 49) to Nebraska's unicameral legislature. Newly elected Speaker Mike Flood remarked that despite some trepidation and anxiety over the experience lost at the close of the last session, most would agree that the new senators adapted quickly and contributed to the legislative process.

Senators enacted legislation that tackled tax relief, a reorganization of the state Department of Health and Human Services office and water and vegetation management. Other legislation addressed educational issues in the Omaha metro area, increased tax deductions for contributions to college savings plans and promoted renewable energy by encouraging wind energy and biodiesel development.

The approved tax cut plan included a chunk of property tax relief with an 8-cent per $100 valuation property tax credit. It also eliminated the income tax marriage penalty and ended the state’s estate tax. A Nebraska family of four that earns  $75,000 and owns a $200,000 home will save about $422 on income and property tax in the next year.

One major piece of legislation was passed, but then vetoed by the Governor. LB 658, would have allowed for creation of Class I school districts through what some believed was a complicated process. Nebraska public school districts are divided into five classes, mostly determined by population. Last year a referendum repealed a law that called for the assimilation of Class 1 districts, which primarily consisted of grades K-8, into the K-12 school systems. L.B. 658 established a reorganization process allowing for the creation of new Class I school districts. The governor said that the process set out in the bill to form and govern Class I districts was unfair. The veto means the state returns to an existing law that no longer shields Class I schools, and their buildings could be sold or demolished.

Janna Goodwin is one of NCSL's liaisons with the Nebraska Legislature.  Photo of Nebraska dome by Eric Oxendorf.

Changes in the Louisiana Legislature

by Karl Kurtz

The Louisiana Legislature, especially the House of Representatives, is undergoing rapid change in at least two areas. First, 12-year term limits in each chamber, enacted in 1995, are taking full effect for the first time in the elections of 2007.   Of the 105 members of the Louisiana House, only 52 are running for reelection, so at least 53 members will be freshmen after the 2007 elections.

Second, Republicans, long a small minority in the legislature, have been making significant gains in the last decade and expect to make more in the 2007 elections, turning a traditionally one-party legislature into a competitive two-party system.  The current party lineup in the House is 61 Democrats, 43 Republicans and one independent.  Since passage of many bills (changes to expenditure limits, taxes, general obligation bonds) require a two-thirds majority (70 votes), Republicans now have the power to block action and are using it.

The Louisiana Legislature has Long (pun intended) been dominated by one of the most powerful governors in the country.  They have operated under what is called "the cult of the governor."  Among other things, this means that governors have historically "anointed" the speaker and the senate president, even when the governor was of the opposite party of the majority in the legislature, and then consulted with the presiding officers on the appointment of committee chairs.

Now, at least some Louisiana legislators believe that these changes may offer the opportunity for the legislature to assert itself and to balance the power of the executive more effectively.

In anticipation of these challenges, the Louisiana House set up a Special Committee on Preparing for Term Limits.  At the request of this committee, NCSL this past weekend put together a workshop for a bipartisan group of six potential legislative leaders to discuss how the House can most effectively adapt its procedures and traditions.  We brought in a group of current and former legislators from other states to brainstorm and consult with the Louisiana team.

Given the off the record nature of this workshop, I can't report in detail on the discussions that were held.  However, I think I can safely share a few nuggets of legislative lore and procedure that came out of the discussion:

Polling Results: Term Limits for Committee Chairs

Of the 25 readers who responded to our poll, do you favor term limits?, 60 percent said yes and 40 percent said no.  Apparently, the majority was not persuaded by the argument that natural turnover and leadership and partisan change take care of the problem of committee chairs who become too entrenched, and they aren't worried that they would lose the talents of expert and skilled committee chairs.

Term Limits for Committee Chairs?

by Karl Kurtz

Earlier this week I testified before the Pennsylvania House Speaker's Commission on Legislative Reform on the subject of term limits.  The commission, which is made up of 12 members from each party, was established by Rep. Dennis O'Brien, the Republican who was elected speaker after House Democrats, who hold a 101-100 margin over the Republicans, were unable to elect their own speaker.  The commission recommended approximately 32 changes in House rules at the beginning of the session and saw 31 of them enacted by the body.  Now it is taking a more in-depth look at four issues: open records, the size of the legislature, campaign finance and term limits.

Term limits are on the agenda in part because Gov. Ed Rendell has mentioned that he thinks that they would be a good idea for the legislature, although he has not pushed a specific proposal.  After hearing testimony and holding a committee discussion (but no votes), the co-chairs of the commission, Rep. David Steil and Rep. Joshua Shapiro, said that their sense of the committee was that there is not strong support for term limits for legislators (which would require a constitutional amendment approved in two separate sessions of the legislature and a vote of the people).

However, it was apparent in the commission meeting that there is considerable interest in the possibility of term limits for committee chairs.  One of the reasons for this is that  the Pennsylvania House has one of the stronger seniority systems in the country because the rules require that the chairs of 23 of the 24 standing committees must come from among the most senior members of the majority party, excluding the seven top leaders.  The only exception to this rule is the appropriations committee.  Seniority does not govern which committee the veteran members get to chair, as the speaker and majority leader can make those decisions.  As one member of the commission put it, "Seniority guarantees you a committee chairmanship but not necessarily a good one."  The practical result of this system, combined with historically low rates of turnover in the Pennsylvania legislature, is that members typically serve more than a dozen years before they become a committee chair.

Knowing in advance that I would be asked about practices in other legislatures regarding committee chairmanships, I boned up on the subject by talking with Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution, Alan Rosenthal of Rutgers University and our own NCSL resident rules and procedure expert, Brenda Erickson.  Here is a summary of what I learned.

Term Limits in the News

by Karl Kurtz

There have been two interesting articles on term limits in recent days.  On Sunday, the Washington Post ran "After Adopting Term Limits, States Lose Female Legislators."  The story quotes former Ohio House speaker JoAnne Davidson on the loss of women in the Ohio Legislature (down from 32 before term limits to 23 after) and goes on to say:

"It's been hard to keep the numbers up," said Davidson, who was Ohio's first female House speaker and now is co-chair of the Republican National Committee. "We pick them up by ones and twos and threes. When all of a sudden you have 40-some seats open, you don't have as many women step up as men to replace them."

Of women, she said: "They're harder to recruit. They're harder to convince to run."

The phenomenon Davidson described holds true across the country, where term-limited legislatures with rising numbers of women are the exception. In fact, gains during the past 12 years have been slightly greater in states without term limits, according to political scientist Gary Moncrief.

"The evidence has shown that it has had absolutely no positive effect at all," said Moncrief, a Boise State University professor who predicted 15 years ago that term limits would increase representation for women. "The logic was impeccable, the empirical evidence not at all. The problem is there aren't as many women running as we expected."

Unfortunately, the Post story doesn't recognize that Moncrief's research was part of the Joint Project on Term Limits, a four-year national study of the effects of term limits conducted jointly by NCSL, the Council of State Governments and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation.  (See the term limits category of The Thicket for more on this subject.)

The second article of note is a very nicely crafted plea in the Philadelphia Daily News, "Don't dumb down the Legislature," by Pennsylvania Rep. Daylin Leach against Gov. Ed Rendell's proposal to impose term limts on the Pennsylvania Legislature.  Here's an excerpt:

Polling Nuggets from California

by Tim Storey

The nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California released an extensive statewide poll of Californians yesterday that is chock full of eye-opening findings.  One conclusion should probably come as no surprise.  A proposal to modify legislative term limits in California may be a tough sell.    According to the poll, 68% of likely voters think term limits have been a good thing, and 64% oppose a preliminary proposal to change the provisions of California legislative term limits.  However, the poll question did not make it clear to respondents that the proposal would actually shorten the overall amount of time one person could serve in the legislature.  A joint study by NCSL, the Council of State Governments and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation titled Coping With Term Limits and released last August found that term limits have generally had negative effects on the institution of the legislature.   (The report is not available online but you can read about its findings in an earlier Thicket Post here and order a hard copy here).   Apparently, studies akin to NCSL's have not had much influence on average Californians who still believe term limits are good public policy. 

The poll also reports that 41% of California adults approve of the job of the Legislature while only 42% disapprove.  Believe it or not, those are good numbers compared to previous polls on legislative job ratings.  Redistricting reform does not appear to be a burning issue for  folks on the left coast.  Only 37% of those polled think the redistricting process needs "major changes" with 27% saying minor changes would suffice.  In contrast, 71% of respondents say the California health care system needs "major changes" with 16% calling for "minor changes."

Term Limits Weaken Ties between Congress and State Legislatures

by Karl Kurtz

Because I am one of the NCSL liaisons to the California Legislature, I was asked by our Washington, D.C. office (the arm of NCSL that represents the states before the federal government) a few weeks ago to identify California legislators who are close to two members of Congress and therefore might be able to influence their actions.  It turned out to be a much more difficult task than I had anticipated.  My contacts in California had a hard time in coming up with legislators who have strong personal connections to these particular members of Congress.

Why is this so?  It turns out that this is an unexpected and little noted side effect of term limits for two reasons. 

First, the majority of the members of the California congressional delegation have previously served in the state legislature, so they ought to have a lot of friends back in Sacramento.  But with six- and eight-year term limits in the state Assembly and Senate, respectively, the turnover of legislators means that members of Congress not far removed from serving in the legislature soon lose touch with those in the state capitol.  One of the members of Congress with whom we want to connect served in Sacramento several decades ago, so all of his personal friends are long gone.

Second, term-limited legislators who want to remain in politics are more likely to challenge sitting members of Congress than are non-term-limited legislators who can bide their time until there is an open congressional seat.   This is true both across parties and within the same party.  Since term limits were imposed in California, there have been three challenges of incumbent congressmen by termed-out state legislators in Democratic primaries--Hilda Solis vs. Marty Martinez, Juan Vargas vs. Bob Filner and Joe Nation vs. Lynn Woolsey.  The first was successful, the second two were not.  Such events, rarely heard of before term limits, are likely to cause incumbent members of Congress to look over their shoulders at state legislators and perhaps to keep their distance from the politicians back home.

Is this effect confined to California.  It may just be more observable in a state with 53 members of Congress, and California's shorter-than-most (along with Arkansas and Michigan) lifetime term limits may exaggerate the effects.  Two separate academic articles in a recent issue of State Politics and Policy Quarterly (only abstracts available at the link) by Jeff Lazarus of Georgia State University and Jennifer Steen of Boston College document the fact that term-limited state legislators more frequently challenge incumbent members of Congress than do non-term-limited lawmakers. 

We would like to hear from other term-limited states on this question.  Just add a comment below or send us an email.

In the grand scheme of things, the ties between members of Congress and state legislators are not the most important quality of representative democracy or America's version of federalism.  But to us at NCSL, who rely on these relationships for much of our influence on federal policy issues in Washington, D.C., it's a big deal.

Most Anti-Government Ballot Measures Headed to Defeat?

by Jennie Bowser

Frustration with government is evident in the collection of measures on statewide ballots tomorrow:  at least 14 measures in 11 states aim at curbing government power through limiting terms, reining in the judiciary, limiting taxes and spending, or restricting government’s right to regulate land use. 

Here’s a run-down on what recent polls are showing on the anti-government ballot measures:

With a vote that could be the nail in the coffin of the term limits movement, Oregon’s legislative term limits proposal is headed toward failure – 57 percent of those polled last week said they would vote no.  And since Oregon votes entirely by mail, it’s likely that many ballots had already been completed and mailed at the time the survey was conducted.

Coping with Term Limits

by Karl Kurtz

The release of our study on the effects of term limits, Coping with Term Limits, two weeks ago has drawn considerable press, including an editorial in today's USA Today, Let Voters Decide.  Most of the coverage has been straightforward and fair, largely based on our press release and occasionally including an opposing point of view or a comment by a term limits expert in the state where the story appeared.

Two of the reports on the study--the opposing point of view in USA Today by Paul Farago, spokesman for Restoring Oregon's Term Limits, and by Tennessee blogger billhobbs.com--though, have accused NCSL of being "a trade association for incumbents" (Farago) and therefore unreliable on this subject and of overstating our case that term limits have not resulted in greater representation for minorities and women.  I want to clarify the record on both of these points.

Our purpose in conducting the study was not to argue for or against term limits but rather to assess their impact on legislatures more than a decade after they first appeared on the scene.  Our bias, shared by our partner organizations on the Joint Project on Term Limits--the Council of State Governments and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation--is in favor of strong legislatures and an effective system of representative democracy.  If we had found that term limits strengthened legislatures or made them more effective, we would have reported such facts.  Moreover, an unbiased group of a dozen academic political scientists helped us design and conduct the project.

On the subject of the representation of women and minorities it is important to note that  Coping with Term Limits is a 33-page summary of a much longer book, Institutional Change in American Politics: The Case of Term Limits, to be published in 2007 by the University of Michigan Press, and our press release was a 2-page summary of the summary.  As we condensed this information, it was sometimes difficult to impart the subtlety, nuance and appropriate qualifications of our findings that are contained in the full-length manuscript.

The original chapter on the composition of legislatures covering the subject of women and minorities was written by political scientists Gary Moncrief of Boise State University, Lynda Powell of the University of Rochester, and Tim Storey of NCSL.  In an effort to clarify our findings and to provide other source material that readers can go to, excerpts from their chapter, "Composition of Legislatures," in the full-length book are included below the jump.

It may not be Rocket Science, but it's Still Hard Work

by Karl Kurtz

I loved this description of the complexity of legislative work in an editorial in the Kennebec Journal about the value of legislators attending  NCSL's annual meeting:

This is what lawmakers do when they get to the State Legislature:

They sponsor, write and deliberate over bills that are written in language that only lawyers understand. They consider matters of enormous importance, with which many of them are unfamiliar: health insurance; federal educational mandates; workmen's compensation; takings law; the appropriate way for the criminal justice system to handle sexual predators; the chemistry of clean water; how much oxygen fish need to thrive; the effect of global competition on Maine's remaining natural resource industries; how tall windmills should be to avoid killing birds; what training chiropractors should have if they want to call themselves acupuncturists.

Maine's part-time, non-professional legislators deal with a mind-boggling array of complex issues, for which many of them have little training. From considering obscure issues of criminal law to mastering -- or not -- the byzantine complexity of the state's budget, they work hard, get paid little for their efforts and, because of term limits, a new crop of them is always being forced to learn the issues and parliamentary maneuvers necessary to be an effective legislator.

"Maine's oldest newspaper" gets it!

Minimum Wage for Ex-Legislators?

by Karl Kurtz

In an AP story appearing in the Contra Costa Times, Bipartisan Fever Grips Legislature, on how California Democratic legislative leaders have reached a  deal with Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to raise the minimum wage to $8 an hour, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata says, "The cynics have wondered why we were doing this in an election year, and I remind people that [Speaker] Fabian [Nunez] and I are termed out in two years, and $8 an hour sounds pretty damned good to us."

Brain Drain or Term Limits Work Just Fine?

by Karl Kurtz

Last Sunday's Los Angeles Times contains two somewhat contradictory articles on the impact of term limits in California.  A news story, Term Limits Add up to Brain Drain in Capitol, documents high levels of turnover in legislative staff, especially among committee consultants,  in Sacramento since the imposition of term limits. The article suggests, among other things, that the influence of lobbyists has increased as a result of the combination of legislator and staff turnover.

An op ed piece by University of California Irvine political scientist Mark Petracca, one of the few political scientists who supports the idea of term limits, published an op ed piece in the same edition entitled Term Limits Work Just Fine, Thank You.  Petracca's article is aimed at a proposal to repeal term limits for the Los Angeles City Council, but it draws on the experience of the California Legislature.  One of his arguments is that lobbyists couldn't possibly have gained power because the city council was already "plundered [or] controlled by influential lobbyists" before term limits.  This, he says, is one of the reasons why term limits were passed in the first place.

Leaving aside the curious case of a political scientist who assumes that intended consequences are the ones that result from an institutional reform, I'd like to add some perspective to these two articles and set the record straight on a factual error in Petracca's piece.

Few Primary Election Surprises

by Tim Storey

Tuesday was the second largest primary day of 2006 with six states holding state primary elections plus federal primaries in New Jersey and Mississippi.  Unlike a few earlier primary Tuesdays this year, yesterday produced no bombshell results in legislative races. 

A few incumbents fell to intra-party challengers in Alabama, Iowa, Montana and South Dakota including Iowa Senator Maggie Tinsman, first elected in 1988 and a member of NCSL's Executive Committee.  In South Dakota, four incumbent GOP Senators (including six-term Senator J.P, Dunaphan) who had voted against the highly publicized law to ban most abortions lost to challengers.  More South Dakota legislators had primary opponents than any other election in the past decade.

Some Days you Wish for a King

by Karl Kurtz

"[My state] is frequently hamstrung by the initiative process, which thwarts the delicate balance and compromise that characterizes good legislation."

"The voters are getting better than they deserve."

"Some days you wish for a king."

These are just a few of the comments on the effectiveness of the legislature that we received from a national survey of legislative staff. Most of the survey focused on the work of legislative staff, and the results will appear in the July issue of State Legislatures magazine.

But we also asked some questions about staff perceptions of the legislative process. Because there's not room for a report on these questions in the magazine story, we want to share some of the results here in The Thicket.

Ballot Scratch on Term Limits

by Karl Kurtz

In Governing magazine's blog, 13th Floor, Alan Greenblatt beat us to the punch in writing about the Florida Legislature's decision on the last day of session to remove from the November ballot a