Moore: Time to Consider a Full-Time Legislature

Monday, December 12, 2016

Russell Moore, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

I know how most people are going to react when they hear the suggestion that the state adopt a full-time legislature model of government.

They’re going to recoil.

The objections, at least at first blush, are reasonable. The state spends enough money on our legislative branch of government already. Critics will also assert that the state legislature tends to do more harm than good, so why would we want to put them to work any longer than we need to? Similarly, almost every time we pass a law, we diminish a little bit more of our freedom, so why would we want lawmakers doing more?

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Yet if the state were to adopt a full-time legislature, similar to that of neighboring Massachusetts and 8 other states throughout the country, there would be some positive aspects as well.

For instance, the creation of a full-time legislature would deemphasize the importance and minimize the influence of the employees who work at the statehouse. As the system is currently run, with legislators forced to spend the lion-share of their time outside of the statehouse doing their actual career jobs, the bulk of the research, and other legwork is performed by statehouse staff members. That makes those unelected individuals extremely powerful in a way that often seems undemocratic.

Less Powerful Staff

And it’s not only the legislative staff that is empowered by this dynamic. Often times, because the legislators are part-time and don’t have the time to craft the nuts and bolts of certain laws, they’ll simply direct the administration to draft regulations according to vague guidelines. In some cases, the regulations are often crafted in a manner that’s contrary to the original intent of the legislators.

In the same respect, it would also actually give legislators control over what legislation gets passed and doesn’t. Again, since legislators rely so heavily on staff under the current system, the staff members are able to direct (often unknowingly) one way or the other on any issue since they provide the information.

If the legislature were full-time, the legislators would be able to spend far more time on any given issue.

Time is a major issue for most people who want to run for the state legislature, since it’s part-time. What profession, outside of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and lawyers, can afford the time to make it to the statehouse three days per week at 4 p.m.? The answer is not many. That’s why we see such a disproportionate number of those professions serving in our statehouse.

But that’s not what democracy should be about. Instead, we should have a wider cross section of professions within our community representing us at the statehouse. A full-time legislature would allow that to take place. Folks could leave their profession, serve at the statehouse for a number of years, and then return to the private, nonprofit, or public sectors once again.

Good Government

An additional feature of a full-time legislature is that it would open the door to other good government reforms.

For instance, one of the major problems with the line-item veto is the fact that the state legislature always passes the budget at the end of the session, and returns home a few days later. If the state adopts a line-item veto for the governor, the governor will be able to strike down almost anything in the budget, knowing full-well that the state legislature isn’t going to return to override it.

That wouldn’t be the case with a full-time legislature. The legislature would be there already, and if the legislative leadership could muster the votes, they could override the vetoes. In other words, timing wouldn’t become a practical problem.

A practical problem of term limits, one of my pet issues, is the fact that again, the staff would end up running the state legislature even more than they already do if term limits are put in place. That’s because legislators wouldn’t have the institutional memory of knowledge on the issues.

Yet under a full-time legislature, the learning curve would be far less steep.

Worth Consideration

None of this is to say that the idea of a full-time legislature is something that we should enact immediately. The drawbacks, particularly cost, are significant.

Yet it’s something that, given the positive attributes, the state should at least be considering at the time.

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Russell Moore has worked on both sides of the desk in Rhode Island media, both for newspapers and on political campaigns. Send him email @[email protected]. Follow him on twitter @russmoore713.

Moore: Time to Consider a Full-Time Legislature

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