Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Editorial from Democrat-Gazette

Should the legislature be allowed to meet every 

year?  

Government in Arkansas should be small 

BY DAN GREENBERG SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE  

 

   Less than fifty years ago, congressmen had part-time jobs in Washington: they were often 

able to finish their federal work in June and come home for the balance of the year. They were 

tied to the communities they represented through work, home, family, school and 

neighborhood. Today, our fulltime Congress makes Congressmen tied primarily to Washington, 

although federal legislators are able to make secondary, brief campaign appearances back 

home. These days, it’s much too easy for legislators to become disconnected from their 

constituents and get overly comfortable working with D.C. lobbyists and government 

bureaucrats.  

   Do you want our state legislature—the chief policymaking body for nearly three million 

Arkansans—to look more like Congress? Then have I got a deal for you! If you think Congress is 

doing a great job and you want our state legislature to follow suit, then you should vote for 

Proposed Constitutional Amendment 2. Right now, our state legislature meets for a few months 

every two years. This proposed constitutional amendment will allow the legislature to go into 

session every year—twice as often as it has.  

   Amendment 2 isn’t getting discussed much, but it is without a doubt the biggest and most 

consequential change in Arkansas government in my lifetime. Let me tell you why making this 

change is a terrible idea.  

   Government in Arkansas should be small and non-intrusive, and our state’s legislators should 

work hard to limit their own taxing and spending. The time our legislature spends in session 

needs to be limited, so that legislative attention is concentrated on matters of only the greatest 

importance. But having annual legislative sessions will accomplish just the reverse of these 

conservative Arkansas values.  

   Annual sessions will make it harder for our representatives to be citizens of their districts. 

Annual sessions will create tremendous pressure for pay increases and higher travel allowances 

for legislators, who will find it harder and harder to have real jobs that, every year, allow four 

months time off. Annual sessions will weaken the connections between the people and those 

who are supposed to represent them. Annual sessions will attract candidates who seek 

government sinecures, not private-sector successes. And annual sessions will also give more 

publicity to incumbent politicians and drain the last vestiges of competitiveness out of our 

current political campaigns, which are already heavily biased toward incumbent re-election.  

   Annual sessions will also lead to big government in Arkansas. Political scientists have 

demonstrated what everybody knows: the longer legislatures are in session, the more 

legislation they produce—which generally leads to bigger, more expensive and more complex 

government. States with full-time legislatures generally rank near the top of the list of biggest 

per-person taxers and spenders. In contrast, our neighborhood state of Texas—which, like 

Arkansas, has a legislature that only meets every other year—is consistently near the bottom of 

the list when ranked by per-person taxing and spending.  

   Anyone who genuinely advocates government that is smaller, cheaper and closer to the 

people must oppose this change to our state Constitution. I’m reminded of the experience of 

former South Dakota Senator George McGovern. After almost 20 years as a full-time federal 

legislator, McGovern tried (and failed) to run a small business. When discussing his time in both 

government and business, he famously said: “I wish I had known a little more about the 

problems of the private sector. I have to pay taxes, meet a payroll: I wish I had a better sense 

of what it took to do that when I was in Washington.”  

   More than 200 years ago, George Washington famously compared government to fire, calling 

it “a dangerous servant and a terrible master.” Our system of part-time sessions is a firebreak

to big government, but moving to annual sessions will be an accelerant.  

   Permitting our legislature to spend twice as much time in session will be a gateway drug to 

big government—and a recipe for even more uncompetitive elections and unresponsive 

politicians. A vote for Amendment 2 runs the risk of producing state legislators as disconnected 

as McGovern admitted he became. I hope Arkansas votes against this Amendment and for our 

current system of biennial sessions, which gives as much time as possible to lawmakers to be 

representatives of their districts—not just representatives of that huge marble dome in the 

center of Little Rock.  

Dan Greenberg is a lawyer and state Representative in District 31.  

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