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Strengthening State Legislatures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Lynton K. Caldwell
Lynton K. Caldwell*
Affiliation:
Council of State Governments
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Extract

Declining prestige of legislative bodies has recently prompted inquiries looking to self-appraisal and reform in Congress and in legislatures of a number of the states. Dissatisfaction with the traditional organization and procedure of state legislatures has grown among legislators, who undertake the perplexities of present-day law-making with inadequate assistance and ineffective machinery. Legislation was seldom a simple problem, but it is today more difficult than at any time in our national history. As the responsibilities thrust upon legislatures are increased, so must the tools and processes of legislation be improved if the quality of legislation is to meet the needs which call it forth.

To assist in the reappraisal and review of state legislative organization and procedure, twelve general suggestions for strengthening state legislatures have been reported to the Council of State Governments by a committee of state officials. Appointed in November, 1945, by the Board of Managers of the Council, the Committee on Legislative Processes and Procedures developed its report after broadly surveying legislative theory and practice and selecting for recommendation to the states those measures of most general application. Dealing with the problems of state legislatures generally, the committee decided at an early date to direct its attention to the strengthening of state legislatures as presently constituted. Questions of reapportionment, of representation in the legislature, proportional representation, unicameralism, and certain mechanics of procedure such as electrical voting were not treated in the final report.

Type
American Government and Politics
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , April 1947 , pp. 281 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1947

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References

1 Perkins, John A., “Congressional Self-Improvement,” in this Review, Vol. 38, pp. 499–511 (June, 1944)Google Scholar; “State Legislative Reorganization,” ibid., Vol. 40, pp. 510–521 (June, 1936).

2 Members of the committee were Senator Floyd E. Anderson of New York (chairman); D. Hale Brake, state treasurer of Michigan; Senator Grant Mcfarlane of Utah; Senator M. C. Matthes of Missouri; John M. Rankin, attorney-general of Iowa; Representative George W. Stetson of Massachusetts; Senator Lee B Weathers of North Carolina; Senator Joseph Reavis of Nebraska; and Representative George Yantis of Washington.

3 Cf. The Book of the States, 1945–46, pp. 108, 113.

4 Council of State Governments, Committee on Legislative Processes and Procedures, Our State Legislatures; Report of the … (Chicago, 1946), p. 8Google Scholar.

5 Winslow, C. I., “State Legislative Committees; A Study in Procedure,” Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Series XLIX, No. 2 (Baltimore, 1931)Google Scholar.

6 Our State Legislatures, p. 10.

7 Report of the Legislative Council, State of Connecticut, Nov. 16, 1944, p. 9Google Scholar.

8 Interim Report of the New York State Joint Legislative Committee on Legislative Methods, Practices, Procedures, and Expenditures. Legislative Document (1945) No. 35, pp. 83–99Google Scholar.

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