It Is Time to Say Goodbye to Our Citizen Legislature
We are in the depths of the annual circus of the State Legislature and I find myself pondering the need for a better system.
Utah is one of a group of states that have part-time legislatures. Having been at the State Legislature as a citizen advocate every year for 7 sessions in a row, I’m increasingly convinced we need to reform the way in which we make law in Utah.
Here’s the problems: in 45 days our state legislators are somehow supposed to tackle several hundred bills including the state budget. The budget alone could fill the 45 day session. Many of the other issues before the legislature require but do not receive full debate. Often debate is curtailed by the awareness that there are 230 other bills waiting. Issues that should have a full week of hearings before the entire legislature get 20 minutes in committee. Citizens often cannot make their voices heard. (I have attended hearings where 10% of those wishing to speak had the opportunity due simply to time constraints.)
During the 45 day session, chaos reigns supreme - it’s not uncommon, as happened this week with sales tax - for important bills to disappear in the fog - both legislators and citizens find themselves scrambling to keep up.Â
The Legislative sessions becomes a pressure cooker in which there is little time to deliberate, understand, debate and ultimately make good decisions. Legislators often scramble just to keep up with their committee meetings. They’re forced into voting on party lines often simply because committees vote on party lines and the legislature follows the committees. As weird as it may sound, our legislature is so far out of step with the wishes of Utahns on many issues because the decision making process in the legislature is dominated by committees which are dominated by the most extreme conservative members.
I believe Utah needs to consider doing away with our part time legislature and moving to a full time legislature. It would mean adding approximately 100 employees to the state payroll, but I believe the benefits are worth the cost. (We already pay our legislators for the days they’re in session but it’s more in the nature of a stipend than a salary.)
Follow me on this one.
A year round legislature could dedicate appropriate time to a wide array of issues - legislators would have more time to understand issues, to learn about them, and to make good decisions. Rather than drafting laws for weeks, then amending them in minutes, our legislators could work more deliberatively. Power would move from the committees back to the larger body. A wide array of issues of importance to Utah voters (public education, for instance) could be debated publicly on the floor of the legislature rather than privately in the committee meetings.  Amendments, changes, and substitutions would receive a decent public hearing.Â
For instance, the state budget currently happens largely invisibly, decided behind closed doors by legislative leadership. Removed from the time constraints of our 45 day session, leadership could work more collaboratively and publicy to draft a budget, there could be extended and intelligent debate about the budget. By removing the time constraints, our legislators could spend all of November and December publicly debating the budget and the budget alone, working out compromises and identifying potential problems as well. The only reason this does not happen is the lack of time our legislature has to spend understanding budget policy.
I’m not naive - I know there would still be games and bad laws and nonsense like the trigger bill to end abortion, but with more time to be more deliberative, I think we’d see a transformation of the legislature. Because it is part time, it gets treated like a part time hobby. Our state is large enough and complex enough we need more seriousness.
Our legislators - at least the majority of them - are neither stupid not blind ideologues (we’ve got a few that fit both categories that’s for sure but they are the minority). Our current system limits debate and curtails effective lawmaking. Most of our legislators truly want to do a good job and want to craft effective, popular policy - but the current system gets in the way. Utah’s citizens deserve better government than we’re getting. I hope a better process would produce better results.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Be careful what you wish for…
“No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”
– Mark Twain
January 25th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I agree wholeheartedly. At the recent United Way pro-legislative breakfast, the point was made clear by Ralph Becker - there is simply not enough citizen involvement in the legislature.
A full-time legislature is the best way to serve the needs of the citizenry of Utah. Who knows - we might even get some better politicians as a result.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I will stand against the idea of a full-time legislature as long as I am able. Yes we have shenanigans. But professionalizing them is not the answer. You think that having professional politicians will improve matters. It will not. Check out all of the states that have full-time legislatures. Every single one of them spends much more per capita than any state with a part-time legislature. None of these full-time legislatures do any better in the areas that frustrate you than does our part-time legislature. Full-time legislatures are better in only one aspect: growing government.
January 25th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Reach - without more information about which states have full time legislators and which don’t it’s hard to judge if the effect is the legislature or other factors. For instance, California is a much wealthier state than Utah and could and would spend more per capita than does Utah. For meaningful contrast, we’d need to look at states similar to Utah in per capita income and compare government spending and type of legislature.
January 25th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
It just doesn’t seem the same this year without the fat horned bastard Chris Buttars on the front page everyday. Is the head loser of the legislature waiting in the wings for the last few weeks of the session, or just taking a breather this year?
January 28th, 2007 at 3:01 am
One thing a full time legislature should do (read: in a perfect world) is deter those who try to straddle the ethical line between citizen legislature and money-maker. There are those, on both sides of the aisle, who should have to choose between the two. Does it bother you, Reach, that the President of the Utah AFL-CIO or the President of the Utah Taxpayer’s Association sits in the upper house of the state legislature. Do you think that affects the way that they vote just a little?
A full-time legislature, hopefully (again, with a grain of salt), would mean that these two would have to choose between sitting in the legislature and lobbying its members.
January 28th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Glenden,
Another argument against the “Citizen Legislature” is that it is by it’s nature exclusionary. There are a very limited number of professions that have the flexibility to take off 45 days in January and February each year. So we end up with a Legislature full of attorney’s, farmers, those in real estate and those with the financial net worth to allow such flexibility. I know that I couldn’t take 45 days off at the beginning of each year from my jobs, and I would guess that 99% of people that read this blog are in the same boat.
This is obviously a very, very small portion of the population that is even available to serve in the Legislature, and lends itself to not being very representative of the population as a whole (parties and ideaologies aside).
Another argument against the “citizen legislature”, although as a libertarian, I suppose the less government is at work, the better.
February 1st, 2007 at 7:23 am
I think you could craft a reasonable compromise on the length of time for a session. Minnesota also has a part-time legislature but at least it goes for about three months, and in regard to Tom Grover’s point about exclusionary bodies, you can’t fault the Minnesota legislature on career variety. You end up with a significant number of — well, let’s take the local delegation from where I was — a union local president, a high school counselor, a bar owner, and a couple others who just do the legislative thing for a living and then advocacy and volunteer activities the rest of the year.
It’s still too short of a session — they are constitutionally required to adjourn by May 17, and it seems they’ve repeatedly had to go to a special session in recent years. But it’s always easier politically to take an incremental step. And somehow, I can’t see Utah wanting to adopt a full-time legislature, especially when the examples are places like Illinois . Besides, I don’t think our legislature is as diverse as the Minnesota one.
You might want to also look at moving your primary date closer to the general election. Yes, the end of June isn’t bad — it’s better than our March fiasco in Illinois — but a later date makes for a shorter campaign and usually fewer resources required for electioneering. Does Arizona’s September primary seem like an attractive option?