Maine Steps Toward Adopting Unicameralism
We have fifty states, but in some ways remarkably little institutional diversity between them. 49 of them, for example, have bicameral legislatures—a State Senate and a variously named lower House—even though nothing terrible seems to happen in unicameral Nebraska. Well, now it looks like the great state of Maine is taking some steps toward unicameral governance:
The Maine House today gave initial approval to a bill to create a one-body legislature. [...] The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration. If it passes both bodies, it will need two-thirds support on final passage and would go to the voters for consideration.
Maine is billing this as a cost-saving measure, but I think of it as a good governance measure. Most people in the United States suffer from being represented by more elected officials than they can actually keep track of. Only a small minority of the population can actually name their two state representatives. Cut that down to one, and you make it somewhat easier for people to inform themselves about what’s going on. At a minimum if you hear that “the state legislature” has done something bad, you can go look up who represents you in the state legislature and complain.
It’s hardly a silver bullet for the problems of state-level governance, but I think unicameralism will help.
32 Responses to “Maine Steps Toward Adopting Unicameralism”
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June 10th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Oddly, Maine and Nebraska are also the only two states that divide their electoral votes.
June 10th, 2009 at 9:32 am
This is a great step. There is really no rationale whatsoever for a “State Senate”. As almost everyone knows, the US Senate is the result of a compromise between large states and small states. State Senates are born of no such compromise, they just fill a bizarre psychological need for a smaller legislative body to partner with the larger one.
June 10th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Bicameralism in the Federal government only makes sense given that the USA is ostensibly a collection of sovereign states, each of whom need equal representation in the Senate to balance off the proportional representation of the House. Since no states that I know of consider themselves to be a federation of counties which are each allowed to send one or two representatives to the state senate, it seems like bicameral legislatures in states just add another layer of bureacracy and other set of big egos that need to be catered to when passing legislation.
The US Senate might be a relatively bad idea, but even it has a certain amount of justification. What was ever the justification for upper houses in state legislatures?
June 10th, 2009 at 9:39 am
I support this idea, but I find it unlikely that most state senates will pass 2/3 votes to abolish themselves and put themselves out of work. Hell, I’d support abolishing the US Senate, but that’s functionally impossible.
You’d think that those Republicans who are always going on and on about how wasteful big government is would support this type of plan, but you never see any of them voting to give up their own cushy sinecure. Why, in New York they seem more interested in bribing the most corrupt Democrats to govern in a coalition with them, so as to protect their absurdly gerrymandered districts that give their party functional control of the state with 40% or so of the popular vote.
June 10th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Most state electoral districts are pretty thoroughly gerrymandered so that a voter has little influence on the outcome of elections – no wonder they don’t keep track. The main time that voters actually register a choice is in the primary of the majority party when a seat falls vacant. Come to think of it, this applies to US congressional elections as well.
June 10th, 2009 at 9:44 am
@2–
not quite right: the compromise between large and small states has to do with the way that states are represented in the upper house (i.e. 2 reps per state, no matter how populous or sparse).
but that was not the only rationale for *having* a second chamber. it was also meant as a further veto-point on government, as madison says in federalist 62:
“It doubles the security to the people by requiring the concurrence of two distinct bodies in schemes of usurpation or perfidy, where the ambition or corruption of one would otherwise be sufficient.”
but i agree that the threat of a runaway unicameral maine government installing a legislative usurpation is fairly slim.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:06 am
On a related issue, here is a wonderful article by Tom Brokaw:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/opinion/20brokaw.html
I am surprised that I haven’t seen more people talk on this issue. There seems to be no major policy chatter about it. However, Brokaw makes thoughtful points.
Maybe, Matt or someone from TP could tackle this issue and run with it.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:31 am
A unicameral legislature would work as well as a bicameral legislature here in New York as right now we have neither. We have a pathetic joke.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Surprised you didn’t use this chance to mention Canada, Matt. Most (if not all) Canadian provinces have unicameral legislatures, having abolished their provincial senates at some point in the last hundred years. This doesn’t seem to create any issues for them.
Interestingly, Prince Edward Island might present something of a solution for how you get this implemented – it initially integrated its upper and lower houses into a single house, but voters still elected an assemblyman and a councillor (equivalent of a senator) until the mid-90s, when they changed it to just electing one assemblyman. I could see a similar solution working temporarily in states like Maine that want to adopt a unicameral legislature, but feel that they can’t because of the vested interests of state senators.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:33 am
I believe that the State Senates are holdovers from colonial times – New York’s State Senate, for instance, is descended from the provincial Executive Council. The Senate just represents the translation of that body into a republican form of government. Bicameral legislatures were the norm at the time, and the tradition just continued from there.
That said, I agree that there is no current justification for bicameral state legislatures, which really only serve to make the state legislative process slower and more confusing.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:33 am
mindGames, stop playing mind games. Just say what the “issue” is that you think Brokaw made “thoughtful points” about rather than wasting our time with your useless comments.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:33 am
I wonder if anyone in California is kicking around unicameralism as part of the Constitutional reform debate. California’s legislative districts are ridiculously large — with only 80 Assembly members and 40 Senators, State Senate districts are already bigger than US House districts, and Assembly seats aren’t too far behind.
Maybe California could abolish the Senate, go to one, larger Assembly (say, 110 members so that it’s overall smaller, but without overlapping districts), and combine that with repeal of Prop 13.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:34 am
As a native Nebraskan I’ve always favored unicameral government (although ironically our state capitol, being symmetrical, has two rooms of assembly, only one of which is usually used). I encourage Maine to go whole-hog and make the body non-partisan as well, like it is in Nebraska.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:37 am
And speaking of Canada, any hope we’ll get a post about the NDP victory in Nova Scotia?
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/9012105.html
June 10th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Pesto:
I’ve seen it mentioned, although expanding the number of seats is more commonly discussed, and needs to happened.
However, I’m guessing that 2/3rs repeal, unicameralism, and other big ticket issues like that would have to come through a constitutional convention.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:49 am
StevenAtwell:
I agree that Cali should expand its legislative seats — the combination of enormous districts, expensive media markets, and term limits has really hurt the State Legislature.
But expansion has 2 problems: 1) it’s basically just tinkering with the current system, allowing it to grow as the population has grown. The system is screwed up enough that natural growth might not represent enough progress. 2) it will be so easy to oppose that plan that you won’t even need a consultant to design the campaign. “Sacramento. For years, politicians have been wheeling and dealing, raising our taxes, driving our state further into debt. Well, the Sacramento politicians have finally decided to deal with the problems they’ve been causing. Their solution: more politicians! Vote NO on Prop ____”
If you go for a unicameral legislature with 110 or 115 districts, you at least get to claim that you’re shrinking the legislature, even if you’re making it more representative. And you could even add some proportional representation there, too, while you’re at it (100 districts, 115 Assembly members)!
June 10th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Only a small minority of the population can actually name their two state representatives.
When I used to live in Maryland, we had four state representatives – a state senator and three state delegates (basically, the state was divided into districts, each of which had one state senator and three state delegates who everyone got to vote for).
Since no states that I know of consider themselves to be a federation of counties which are each allowed to send one or two representatives to the state senate, it seems like bicameral legislatures in states just add another layer of bureacracy and other set of big egos that need to be catered to when passing legislation.
My understanding is that prior to Gray v. Sanders, something along these lines was exactly what state senates were for – to overrepresent the sparsely populated rural counties in states at the expense of densely populated urban areas. Arizona’s state constitution actually provided for two state senators from each county. The court (with only Justice Harlan dissenting) ruled that this was unconstitutional, and that all legislative elections had to be held under the principle of one person, one vote. Basically, the U.S. Senate is the only legislature in the country which is exempt from this provision.
So, yeah, they used to do that, but it’s unconstitutional now, and since then, state senates have been pretty much worthless.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I was just thinking the other day that unicameral state legislatures would be a good idea. Not only do 2 houses mean more politicians to keep track of, but they mean more opportunities for corruption. Those 2 things may be related — the less easily we can keep track of our elected officials, the more easily they can be lobbied and bribed by special interests.
Would this help here in New York? Maybe. Anything that shakes up the horrible status quo would probably be an improvement.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Bicameralism doesn’t make any sense. 95% of the corruption in this country can be laid directly at the feet of the Senate. Having a body with that much power and that many ways of gumming up the works has made it too tempting for big money to bribe such a tiny group of people.
When this country really does fall, I’d wager anything that it will be due to the Senates refusal to act.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Ben Franklin was a strong supporter of unicameral legislatures. Pennsylvania had one for awhile. He led an effort to set up the same system on the federal level, but failed.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
The root purpose of bicameralism is to place a check on the will of the majority. Accordingly, its abolishment is a step in the direction of democracy.
Kid bitzer, I’m pretty sure that while the theories in the Feeralists attempt to rationalize the upper house ex post facto, they cannot be tied to any constitutional deliberations from 1787. In 1787, the small states were all, “give us bastards more than our share or we’ll find a more congenial foreign ally”, and the big states were all “are you frekkin kidding me??? People, not states, are the objects of government… Good lord…how will we get a constitution done? we’re exhaused…OK OK UNCLE!!!.”
And that’s how it happened.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
[...] Go here to see the original: Matthew Yglesias » Maine Steps Toward Adopting Unicameralism [...]
June 10th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
[...] Original post: Matthew Yglesias » Maine Steps Toward Adopting Unicameralism [...]
June 10th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
The real problem is that a ridiculous “one-man, one-vote for both houses” interpretation of the Constitution has disallowed states from basing their upper houses on anything but population; the whole point of a Senate is to allow the House to represent the people and the Senate to represent the entities of which the state is composed, i.e. a representative for each county/parish.
By disallowing this, we have basically created legislatures with two Houses of Representatives rather than a true House and Senate.
What we need is for unicameral legislatures and lower houses to be mandated to work on “one-person, one vote,” and allow states to decide whether the upper houses be “one person, one vote,” or “one county/parish, one vote.”
June 10th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
[...] state legislature from bicameral to unicameral has achieved “initial approval.” As Matt Yglesias comments, “We have fifty states, but in some ways remarkably little institutional diversity between [...]
June 10th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Glaivester, there are very tangible historical reasons why the federal government includes the Senate which offers state-by-state representation instead of one man, one vote. The states themselves don’t have any such excuses, and thus they are not owed such a feature of state government. Which means that state senates are merely vestigal organs of the state body politic. The last thing we’d want to do is allow states to decide that they wanted unrepresentative bodies. It’s an invitation to the creation of “rotten boroughs.”
June 10th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I live in Maine, and I’m afraid I don’t buy your argument. People who can’t be troubled to learn two representatives’ names aren’t going to learn one either. People don’t know anything about government at the state level (or even county, and frequently local) and that has nothing to do with the number of representatives.
Ironically, you kinda proved my point: while the reporters and wire services and blogs are all atwitter about the House passing the bill, it was by far less than the 2/3rds required to send a constitutional amendment out to voters. So despite appearances, the bill failed.
Update: the state senate just killed the bill, which was DOA anyway.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
If states feel the need for bicameral legislatures they should elect one house by statewide PR-either open or closed list. That way ideological or other minorities that go unrepresented under single-member district plans could get some representation in the state legislature.
I don’t expèct it to happen in any state in my lifetime.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
the whole point of a Senate is to allow the House to represent the people and the Senate to represent the entities of which the state is composed, i.e. a representative for each county/parish.
The difference is that the country is a federation of semi-sovereign states, whereas counties are divisions of the states created for administrative purposes.
June 10th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
If states feel the need for bicameral legislatures they should elect one house by statewide PR-either open or closed list. That way ideological or other minorities that go unrepresented under single-member district plans could get some representation in the state legislature.
That would not necessarily be a bad idea either.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
One critical thing that has been missed so far in the discussion is the relevance of the so-called “Conference Committee” that has been spawned by the bicameral system in order to resolve differences between House & Senate versions of legislation
So much of the final bill writing happens in these conferences, and there’s very little oversight into what happens during them (I believe, but don’t quote me on this, that they’re closed-door). Getting rid of the second house eliminates the need for these conferences, so you get rid of a backdoor that could let corrupt legislators sneak in bad provisions into legislation and have them go uncaught without the formal review process for original legislation
June 11th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
[...] blogger Matt Yglesias notes, “We have fifty states, but in some ways remarkably little institutional diversity between [...]