Everyone’s a reformer these days, but some “reforms” are better than others.
At the risk of annoying my friends, I’d like to take a crack at a proposal that has the support of many Republicans and conservatives: session limits for the General Assembly.
Currently, several bills attempt to restrict the amount of time our legislators spend on Jones
Street. Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger’s S.B. 156, for instance, essentially would cap long sessions at 100 days and short ones at 55. Democrat Sen. Tony Rand has S.B. 15 that prevents members from receiving their per diem for more than 195 days during the biennium.
The past decade is replete with such efforts. The John Locke Foundation has been a supporter; session limits were a central part of “Agenda 2002” and “Agenda 2004.”
But session limits are not a particularly good idea. I’m all for saving money, but any amount recouped would be minimal. At current salaries and per diems, Berger’s bill would have the effect of reducing payments to legislators by about $1.7 million, or 25 percent, if we assume 2007-08 session lengths. This sounds like a lot, but it is only about 0.008 percent of the state’s annual budget.
I have a better proposal to reduce the legislature’s aggregate costs. Why not just get rid of some lawmakers? Reducing the General Assembly’s membership by 43 would have about the same budgetary effect as Berger’s bill.
I’m also in favor of a legislature that works hard. Session limits seem like they would reduce the time members spend twiddling their thumbs. But, as the private sector understands, if you want quality outputs you don’t reduce working hours, you pay for them.
A smaller legislature — say cutting it to between 100 and 120 members, about the size of the legislatures in California and New Jersey — would permit us to reward individual members more while limiting total costs. It would also enlarge the pool from which we draw.
The General Assembly is currently inhabited disproportionately by retirees and small business folks. Other talented North Carolinians just cannot afford to take three-month chunks out of their lives for the $14,000-a-year salary.
The real problem with session limits, however, is that they empower the governor. Compared to peers across the country, the North Carolina executive is quite weak. On UNC political scientist Thad Beyle’s power ranking, the office comes in 44th — largely because it doesn’t have the line-item veto and much of the Council of State is independently elected.
Compared to the legislature, however, our chief executive is extremely powerful. The patronage powers, staffing resources, and capacity to leverage information the governor enjoys are immense. Legislative session limits would add dramatically to this imbalance.
At the moment deadlines for legislative agreement are applied equitably. The fiscal year starts July 1, and both the governor and legislature are responsible for getting a budget done by then. Both feel the pressure of public anger when they aren’t rapidly addressing the state’s problems.
But if the legislature must get all its work completed in a finite amount of time while the governor does not, the administration can simply wait out the General Assembly when they tussle over policy. This is accentuated in budget politics.
Armed with the veto and knowing the other branch faces time constraints, the administration would hold its ground and wait for the legislature to come to it.
Given that the median senator and, especially, the median House member have been to the right of recent Democratic governors, the result would be more liberal budgets. Unless the state can get some Republican governors, then, conservatives are unlikely to be happy with policy outcomes under session limits.
Of course, this problem is mollified if the bill in question need not pass. There will come a point when the legislature would prefer to go home than have a law. But that point won’t be reached often. Lawmakers who can brandish tangible legislative accomplishments will be a lot more popular than those who govern during gridlock.
Desperate to do something and with the top of the hourglass quickly emptying, the General Assembly will acquiesce to the governor’s proposals.
We want less costly government. Unfortunately, many people believe the legislature is a great place to generate savings. But of all the places where policy is made, it is the most deliberative, transparent, and responsive to public opinion.
Populated by generalists, it is also better able to craft a coherent public policy than can state agencies, boards, and commissions. It mitigates executive power. Let’s remember this before we undercut our General Assembly.
Andy Taylor is political science chairman at N.C. State University and a Carolina Journal columnist.