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9. The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch
- University of Nebraska Press
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [First Page] [186], (1) Lines: 0 to ——— 1.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TE [186], (1) chapter nine The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch “Honey, if we only did things that were constitutional we’d have gone home months ago.” State legislator, to the executive director of the Arkansas aclu, 1997 I’ll make a[n] . . . assertion about the Arkansas Legislature, aware that someone will surely send the following sentence to Ripley: Our Legislature is less dishonest and less ineffective than it used to be. Longtime legislative observer John Brummett, 2000 State historians have not attempted to rank Arkansas legislatures as they have governors, but it seems fair to say that if few governors achieved very impressive records of achievement, their efforts still shine in contrast to those of the legislatures with which they dealt. Indeed, the institutional ineffectiveness of the legislative branch was a constant thread in Arkansas political history from the 1830s through the 1960s.1 Unlike the governorship, which began the twentieth century in the straitjacket imposed by the 1874 constitution, the legislature brought at least some of its institutional disabilities upon itself. The constitution established a biennial session not to exceed 60 days, but permitted the legislature to extend the session by a two-thirds vote in both chambers and to set their own compensation. By 1901 the legislature had extended its meeting to 107 days, by 1907 to 117 days, and by 1909 to 145 days, all at a per diem expense rate. Because much of the legislators’time was spent on purely local legislation (for example, regulating the number and place of train stops) and they constantly yielded to the bribery and coercion of railroad, insurance, liquor, and other lobbyists, the patience of the people snapped, and they The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch 187 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [187], (2) Lines: 62 to 68 ——— 0.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [187], (2) used their new power of the constitutional initiative to slap on the handcuffs. Amendment 5, ratified by a 78 percent majority in 1912, provided a payment of six dollars per diem for the first 60 days of a session, three dollars per diem for the first 15 days of extraordinary sessions, and nothing thereafter. Five subsequent amendments over the decades have raised legislative salaries (and now allow for increases by statute). Moreover, additional statutes have provided supplementary compensation and benefits, and few sessions in modern times have concluded their work within the 60-day limit. Nevertheless, the concept of a limited legislature with part-time pay for parttime work still prevails. Indeed, until 1973, the legislature simply ceased to exist at the close of the brief biennial session: no professional staff, no ongoing committees, and no permanent legislative leaders maintained the institutional presence of the legislature in the interim.And, again until recent reforms, the sessions were destined to be nonproductive. Each new term brought a large proportion of newcomers who wandered in bewilderment through a raucous and undisciplined atmosphere in which lobbyists swarmed onto the chamber floors (and frequently joined in the voting), bills were scheduled or buried at whim through mysterious manipulations, committees and committee assignments were so numerous as to be meaningless, and whatever real business the legislature accomplished was worked out in latenight (andfrequentlyliquor-fueled)sessionsinthedowntownMarionHotel.2 The state press occasionally fulminated against the boodle and booze, and a few citizen reform groups sometimes protested, but there is little to suggest that legislators themselves were embarrassed by their ineffectiveness or that citizens really expected the legislature to do much more than it did. Nor was this situation unique to Arkansas. As the Citizens’ Conference on State Legislatures aptly observed in 1973, “We have never really wanted our state legislatures to amount to much, and they have obliged us.” Furthermore, at least some Arkansans greatly preferred and deliberately perpetuated a passive rather than interventionist assembly. As V. O. Key pointed out, Arkansas’s atomized politics made it possible “to elect a fire-eating governor who promises great...