The Thicket at State Legislatures

Provisional Ballot Count Overturns Assembly Seat in California

Ron Smith's photo on the California Assembly Republican caucus web page

"I had most of my staff getting ready to be hired, my picture was up on the wall, I had my office that was assigned to me, and I already had two pieces of legislation that were going to be introduced Monday," he said.

That was the lament of Republican Ron Smith who for nearly a month thought that he had won an Assembly seat in Los Angeles County by a margin of 2,000 votes and was prepared to take his seat at the start of session in Sacramento today. On Sunday, though, he learned that his opponent, Democrat Steve Fox, had picked up enough votes in the count of absentee and provisional ballots to win the election.

Smith plans to seek a recount according to the Sacramento Bee.

"No one, including myself or any consultant, could have conceived that I was over three percentage points ahead after the election … and now the provisionals came in … that it would overturn the (results)," he said. "Mathematically, statistically, that just doesn't happen."

Citizens Invited to Tackle Red Tape in Texas

by Pam Greenberg

“In the good old days, we did not have to compete in a world market. We did not have to keep up with technology, that changes daily, or learn skills that even seasoned teachers did not have, in order to be the innovators and inventors of the 21st century,” says Christy Garcia, a participant the Texas Red Tape Challenge. The Red Tape Challenge is an innovative site created by the Texas House Government Efficiency and Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Bill Callegari.

Garcia’s comment, in response to a discussion topic about assessments of academic readiness (or “Testing, Testing and More Testing,” according to another participant) is part of an active crowdsourcing site that encourages public input. In addition to posting comments, participants can vote on others’ ideas with an “agree” or “disagree” vote.

The web-based project, which was launched in early July, currently focuses on four topics: public school mandates, state agency rulemaking, manufacturing in Texas, and occupational licensing (there’s a lively debate going on about the licensing of geoscientists).

According to Callegari, the challenge is "an extension of my longstanding philosophy that good ideas may be found within the wealth of expertise and experiences of all Texans. And that those ideas may contribute to meaningful changes in our laws and regulations."

There’s also room for “Off Topic Ideas” like the top-ranked “Put lawmakers’ financial disclosures online” suggestion, with a feedback score of +15, or the suggestion to "Eliminate the Texas Senate" (score: 0).

According to Jeremy Mazur, Chief of Staff for Rep. Callegari and site moderator, the rate of public participation on the site has exceeded their original estimates, and continues to climb. The committee will consider ideas and recommendations from the project in a formal hearing in the Texas Capitol in November.

House Speaker Joe Straus is encouraging Texans to visit the site, which he says will “help the Legislature make state government more efficient, accountable and responsive to taxpayers. ”

Congress Kicks Can on Transportation, Another 3 Month Extension

What it Means for States

By Jon Kuhl

On Thursday, March 29, the House and Senate agreed to kick the can down the road and give themselves a three-month extension before agreeing on a longer-term transportation bill. This latest deal marks the ninth such extension since the previous transportation law expired in 2009.

 

In a short video interview, NCSL Committee Director Ben Husch discusses what this means for states, and how likely a more permanent solution may be in the midst of an election year.

 

 

Texas Senate Committee Takes Social Media South by Southwest

Texas state Sen. John Carona

by Pam Greenberg

Today, the Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce will participate in South by Southwest (SXSW)—the uber music, film, and technology conference and festival held in Austin each year. The session, “Senate Committees Push Boundaries on Social Media,” will highlight the committee’s use of social media and web 2.0 tools to engage with the public. According to the session description, Committee Chairman John Carona wants to “push the envelope so hard it’s no longer stationery,” going paperless, live blogging, using social media, and developing a committee app. A Statesman.com article from January describes some of the committee's work:

At present, the Senate panel is working to "crowdsource" an upcoming hearing on payday lending to give a voice to more Texans affected by the high-interest, short-term loans.

Crowdsourcing is an open call issued online for help in performing tasks—preparing legislation or compiling research, in this case—in the hope of getting a group of people or "crowd" to carry out the task.

Several times in recent months, the Senate panel and the Joint Committee on Oversight of Higher Education Governance, Excellence and Transparency have used Twitter, live blogs and other online tools to try to broaden citizen involvement.

The Committee also has an Android app and is planning an iPhone version (a list of other legislative apps is available from NCSL here.) The New York State Senate has also used crowdsourcing in the past to gather ideas about property taxes, ethics reform and campaign finance.

To follow the Committee and conference events on Twitter, check out the Committee hashtag #TxLegeBC and the conference hashtag #SXSW.

State Legislative Photo of the Day

From the Spokesman Review's Eye on Boise:

The story:

At a joint hearing of the [Idaho] House and Senate Resources committees this afternoon on state-federal oversight and the sage grouse, there was lots of concern that efforts to improve habitat for the unique fowl in order to avoid endangered species listing might be as onerous for ranchers and others as listing itself. As the various presenters spoke, a member of the audience dressed as a big, fuzzy bear nodded thoughtfully.

A rose from The Thicket to Gary Moncrief.

Legislative Leaders Attend Agriculture Summit

By Marcus Peterson & Tamra Spielvogel

It came as no surprise to attendees of the Legislative Agriculture Chairs Summit that agriculture is one of the few sectors in the country running a positive trade balance. The annual summit is the only national meeting dedicated to state and provincial committee, caucus or chamber leaders with an interest in agriculture and rural policy. Legislative leaders from 47 states and seven Canadian provinces attended.

Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman opened the summit focusing on the importance agriculture has played in keeping his state’s unemployment rate at a low 4.1 percent. Legislators were also briefed by U.S. House and Senate Agriculture and Energy Committee staffers on the upcoming legislative landscape and reauthorization of the “2008 Farm Bill.” They met with U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack, as well as other key USDA and White House staff, to discuss critical agriculture challenges facing rural communities. Other sessions discussed rural energy, animal welfare, invasive species, food safety, and farmland taxation.

The meeting provided state and provincial lawmakers with new tools to help cultivate thriving rural communities and keep agriculture profitable. The summit was co-hosted by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the Council of State Governments (CSG), and was held in Washington, D.C., January 6 – 8th.

The Sometime Governments Revisited

by Karl Kurtz

In an article in the July issue of State Legislatures magazine, "What Legislatures Need Now," Brian Weberg and I address the institutional challenges facing state legislatures today. In the article we compare the contemporary problems of legislatures to the prescriptions for change offered 40 years ago by an influential book, "The Sometime Governments," published by the Citizens Conference on State Legislatures. The book is long out of print and has no online presence. Here's what we say about it in the article:

The Citizens Conference on State Legislatures was a private nonprofit organization formed in 1964 to improve state legislatures. With a major grant from the Ford Foundation, it launched a 50-state study of legislatures in 1969 and published “The Sometime Governments: An Evaluation of the 50 American Legislatures” in 1971.

Based on criteria for “functional, accountable, informed, independent and representative” legislatures, the book evaluated state legislatures and ranked them from one to 50. The rankings caused a considerable stir among state lawmakers, and were an effective call to action: No state wanted to remain ranked in the bottom half of the list or to be below its neighbors or rivals.

The book contained both general recommendations for all states and specific recommendations for each legislature. The recommendations focused on such things as the length of the session, number of members, committee organization, facilities and staffing. They were highly prescriptive and specific.

Unfortunately, there wasn't room in the magazine article for excerpts from the book's 73 general recommendations to the states. Here are nine samples, using the numbering from the book:

1. Reduce the overall size of the legislature…. Although size reduction in a legislative body is extremely difficult to achieve, it has been done in some states … and needs to be accomplished in others …. There should be 100 or fewer members in the lower House. The combined size of both houses should be between 100 and 150.

Tough Legislative Issues Discussed On NPR

By Meagan Dorsch

Some of these issues on the agenda of NCSL's Spring Forum last week caught the eye of National Public Radio, who put together a story for its Weekend Edition on some of the more challenging issues that states are facing. Representative Sharon Schwartz from Kansas and Speaker Terri Norelli from New Hampshire were asked by National Public Radio to speak on budget and health care issues impacting their states.

The National Conference of State Legislatures Spring Forum allows lawmakers and legislative staff to work with fellow colleagues to examine how federal issues affect the states and develop states' advocacy positions before Congress and the administration.

Former speaker of the U.S. House of Representative, Newt Gingrich, spoke to legislators and staff about civility in politics. U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, stressed that green energy will be the new industrial revolution for states and our nation.

State leaders discussed and shared possible solutions to issues like redistricting, four-day work weeks, budgets, health care reform, education reform initiatives, credit card reform and high-speed rail proposals. Last weeks meeting provided an forum for state legislators and staff to meet with colleagues who are leading reform efforts in their respective states.

NPR's interview (6:32) gives a snapshot of the tough issues that not only Kansas and New Hampshire are facing, but what state legislatures are grappling with across the country.

Many of these tough issues will be discussed NCSL's Legislative Summit in Kentucky this summer. The summit will host over 150 policy sessions for legislators and staff that give information, ideas and solutions to the critical problems facing state legislatures today. 

Fire Alarms and Police Patrols: Two Approaches to Legislative Oversight

by Karl Kurtz

American legislatures don't devote enough time or attention to legislative oversight. That's a nearly universal complaint about both Congress and state legislatures. Legislative surveillance and control of the executive branch is hard work, not very rewarding and not something that legislators can easily take credit for, say the critics by way of explanation for the neglect of this function.

But that's a one-dimensional view of legislative oversight, according to University of California Berkeley Professor Bruce Cain in testimony before California Assembly and Senate select committees on improving state government last week. Bruce was drawing on a distinction between police patrol oversight and fire alarm oversight, terms coined in the 1980s by political scientists Matthew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz.

Police patrol oversight, like its namesake, is the routine work of "patrolling" the executive branch looking for problems in program implementation. It is usually centralized in a legislature in an audit or program review committee with a staff agency that evaluates the performance of executive agencies. It relies on formal committee hearings on agency operations and on interim studies and reports on legislative performance. Police patrol oversight is usually initiated by the legislature and tends to be formal and systematic.

Fire alarm oversight of executive programs by legislatures occurs when interest groups complain about how programs are administered, the media expose programmatic waste or abuse, or constituents report problems with government services that reveal flaws in program design or implementation. It is highly decentralized, relies on outside actors to "sound an alarm", and is less than systematic.

"My bills were my babies. I loved them all"

by Karl Kurtz

In the middle of a day-long joint hearing by California's recently appointed Assembly and Senate select committees on improving state government, Bob Naylor, a former Assembly minority (Republican) leader, said, "This is the best prolonged discussion of the legislative process, in which members have stayed attentive, that I have ever seen in California."  Fifteen members were present for most of the day and asked challenging and interesting questions of a dozen or so panelists.

The most colorful, provocative and occasionally outrageous testimony was given by State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who was formerly attorney general and president pro tem of the Senate.  A few of his best one-liners:

• Referring to the cumbersome system of checks and balances in American democracy, he said, "We're part of a system that was designed not to work."  See Dan Walters in the Sacramento Bee.
• In relation to a proposal to allow committee chairs to decide which bills would be heard (California has a practice of hearing all bills), he said that he wouldn't want a committee chair to determine which of his bills were heard.  "My bills were my babies.  I loved all of them."
• "As someone who has served both in the legislative and executive branches, I can say that legislative oversight is often unfair to the executive."
• "Maybe we should have graduated limits on bill introductions. You know, first-term members could introduce just a few bills, second-term members a few more, and so on..."
• Referring to the inexperience problem in the Assembly created by term limits and evidence that Assembly committees stop far fewer bills than they did before term limits: "Two-thirds of the bills that come out of the Assembly should never see the light of day....  Stop it, stop it, stop it!  Nancy Reagan was right: You should just say no."