State Legislatures
In studying state government, students often assume that the state government is simply a smaller version of its national counterpart. This assumption misleads more than it reveals when looking at procedures and operations.
In many ways, state legislatures do resemble Congress. All state legislatures (save
But in the procedures used, the operations carried out, and in the relative strengths of various officers, parties, committees, and lobbyists, state legislatures tend to be notably different from Congress. Short sessions, low pay, limited staffs, and high turnover all tend to make state legislatures substantially less “professional” than Congress. Their committees perform the important screening and investigating functions but do not typically have the independent power that congressional committees have. Parties are important in states with competition, but nearly half the states do not fit into that category. Lobbyists tend to be the major sources of information, and in some states they are the dominant influence in the legislative process.
As the text notes, state legislatures are reforming. They are becoming much more professional than they were twenty years ago—professional in the sense of becoming more like Congress. Of course, an important question is whether this is a positive development. Do we want state legislatures to become like Congress? Is Congress the model to be copied? Is there something lost when the amateur legislator is no longer the norm? Nevertheless, there is new interest and new vitality in state government, and legislative reform is one of the top items on the agenda, as well as one of the top accomplishments.
I. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Describe the powers of state legislatures
2. Explain how state legislatures are similar to Congress and to each other, and those ways they are different.
3. List the various functions of state legislatures and legislators.
4. Provide a profile of the typical state legislator.
5. Explain the impact of party competition on the role that the party will play in state legislatures.
6. Define party caucus.
7. Explain the functions of committees in state legislatures.
8. Describe the traits typical of effective lobbyists and explain why lobbyists are so important to the legislative process.
9. Identify and discuss the major influences on a state legislator's vote.
10. Examine the trend of state legislatures changing from amateur bodies to professionalized bodies and discuss the pros and cons of each.
11. Debate the arguments for and against term limitations.
12. Explain the reapportionment and redistricting process and the reason for the intense political controversies surrounding reapportionment and redistricting.
13. Describe the principles behind, and the effects of, the Supreme Court's reapportionment decisions.
14. Define initiative, referendum, and recall.
15. Analyze the pros and cons of direct democracy.