Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-22T11:22:55.485Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

State Legislative Reorganization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

John A. Perkins
John A. Perkins
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

While much attention has been given to the efforts of Congress to improve itself, the activities of the state legislatures which have sought improvements as diligently, incidentally fulfilling their laboratory function, have gone virtually unnoticed. Twenty-eight states have given consideration to the renovation of the law-making branch. Comprehensive studies were made in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and in a more limited manner in California. New York, currently intent on modernizing its legislature, has already issued an interim report on expenditures and personnel, although the complete recommendations of its Joint Legislative Committee are yet to come. Committees whose frame of reference limits them to “tinkering” rather than “overhauling” are at work in Michigan and Colorado, with no reports yet submitted. In Alabama, an interim committee called for limited changes. The Bureau of Research established by the Indiana General Assembly in 1945 is authorized, among other things, to conduct research into improved methods of legislation.

The crucial position of the state legislatures in our scheme of government cannot be over-emphasized. The failure to make themselves truly representative by periodic reapportionment and to streamline their organization and procedure, not to mention corruption among personnel, has resulted in an inability and unwillingness to rise to their responsibilities. Political collusion between rural legislators and their henchmen in local government has thwarted unification of multitudinous jurisdictions and the modernization of local administration. When depression-born demands for modern services were not met by state and local government, the federal government of necessity undertook new functions, causing centralization of government in the United States amid condemnation by the same state lawmakers whose inaction clipped democracy short at the grass roots.

Type
American Government and Politics
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , June 1946 , pp. 510 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1946

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For the efforts made in Congress, see Perkins, John A., “Congressional Self-Improvement,” in this Review, Vol. 38 (June, 1944), pp. 499–511.Google Scholar The problem was viewed by the Committee on Congress of the American Political Science Association in its Reorganization of Congress (Washington, 1945)Google Scholar; a briefer survey is that of the National Planning Association, Heller, Robert, Strengthening the Congress, Planning Pamphlet No. 39, Jan., 1945.Google Scholar In 1945, the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress (79th Cong., 1st Sess., H. Con. Res. 18) conducted hearings and studied these subjects: staffing, committee structure and operation, relations between House and Senate, liaison between Congress and Executive, legislative oversight of administration, relations with electorate and with special interest groups, congestion of legislative business, administrative organization of Congress, and compensation of congressional personnel. Unfortunately, the Committee was not authorized to recommend changes in rules and procedure. For the Committee's report, see Organization of the Congress; Report of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, 79th Cong., 2nd Sess., Sen. Rep. No. 1011, Mar. 4, 1946. For an excellent collection of articles on the subject, see Symposium on Congress, Special Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, Aug., 1945.

2 Report of the Special Commission on Legislative System and Procedure, Senate No. 50, Massachusetts, Jan. 1, 1943.

3 Report of the Legislative Council, State of Connecticut, Nov. 16, 1944.

4 Reports of the Assembly Committee on Legislative Organization, California, 1944.

5 Interim Report of the New York State Joint Legislative Committee on Legislative Methods, Practices, Procedures, and Expenditures, Legislative Document No. 35, Mar. 21, 1945; Final Report…, Legislative Document No. 31, Feb. 15, 1946.

6 Reports of Interim Committees, Alabama, Regular Session, 1945, Legislative Document No. 1, pp. 36–51.

7 Hunt, Jarvis, “How Our State Legislatures Can Be Improved,” State Government, Vol. 17 (Sept., 1944), p. 400.Google Scholar For instances of corruption, see the presentments of the grand jury investigations in Michigan and New York begun in 1943 and continuing into 1946 in the former state.

8 For a discussion of this relationship, see Anderson, William, “Federalism—Then and Now,” State Government, Vol. 16 (May, 1943), pp. 107–112.Google Scholar

9 In re Fay, 52 N.E. (2d) 97 (Nov., 1943).

10 This statute was upheld in Stenson v. Dignan, 13 N.W. (2d) 202 (Feb., 1944).

11 Reports of Interim Committees, Alabama, op. cit., p. 50.

12 Letter from W. E. Habbyshaw, Clerk, House of Representatives, Aug. 24, 1945.

13 Illinois Legislative Council, Reapportionment in Illinois, Publication No. 66, Feb., 1945.Google Scholar

14 Senning, John P. “Unicameralism Passes Test,” National Municipal Review, Vol. 33 (Feb., 1944), pp. 60–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Report of the Special Commission, op. cit., p. 99.

16 Holcombe, Arthur N., “Legislative Assemblies: State Legislatures,” Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1933), Vol. 5, p. 369.Google Scholar

17 Ohio Public Acts, 1943, S. 133.

18 Public Acts of Alabama, 1945, no. 152.

19 Public Acts of North Dakota, 1945, no. 289.

20 Indiana Public Acts, 1945, no. 283.

21 See the author's “The Budget in the Legislature,” State Government, Vol. 17, no. 11 (Nov., 1944), p. 447.

22 See Bradley, Phillips, “Blazing New Trails,” Survey Graphic, May, 1944.Google Scholar

23 Report of the Special Commission, op. cit., p. 36; Killpartrick, Eleanor, “Bay State Lobbyists Toe the Mark,” National Municipal Review, Vol. 34 (Dec., 1945), p. 543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Detroit Free Press, July 17, 1944; Senate Enrolled Act No. 83.

25 Farmer, Hallie, The Legislative Process in Alabama: Standing Committees, Bureau of Public Administration, University of Alabama, 1945.Google Scholar

26 Printed in reports of the Assembly Committee on Legislative Organization, California, 1944.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.