Single-House Legislature would be an improvement
When prominent lawmakers of both major political parties are in accord with Governor Ventura and political science academicians on legislative reform, citizens of Minnesota should take note.
The governor has said that a proposal for a single-house legislature will be the centerpiece of his legislative program in the next session. In addition to Reform Party members, Ventura’s proposal is supported by an impressive and diverse group of legislative leaders ranging from Senate President Allan Spear, a liberal Democrat, to House Speaker Steve Sviggum, a conservative Republican.
Over a decade ago, an in-depth study of the Minnesota Legislature was commissioned by the Legislature and performed under the auspices of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute. The results were published in a book, Tribune of the People: The Minnesota Legislature and its Leadership. Among its conclusions were that the current two-house system frustrates legislative accountability and that a single-house, or unicameral legislature, would be a more open process that would be easier for the public to see and understand.
Minnesota’s current two-house legislature, like that of almost all states, is more a result of historical accident than rational public policy. Our bicameral system has its roots in the English House of Lords where the nobility could temper the mistrusted, democratically elected House of Commons. Our Federal Congress has meaningful differences between a Senate comprised of two senators from each state and a House of Representatives where membership is apportioned among the states based upon population.
In our State Legislature, both the Senate and the House are apportioned by population, so we have both houses representing the same population in the same proportions.
Those who defend the current system generally make two arguments.
The first is that having two houses results in greater deliberation, because both houses need to consider and debate the same matter if it is to be enacted into law, and this makes passing laws more difficult. Hasty and ill-considered legislation passed by one house, it is argued, will be fully scrutinized in the other.
The second argument is one of decentralized power. It is often asserted that in a bicameral system the influence of strong leaders and powerful committee chairs is limited to only one of the two houses.
These would be two good reasons to retain a two-house legislature if these theoretical justifications worked in practice. Unfortunately, they do not.
After weeks of open, public committee hearings, and hours of spirited floor debate, the ultimate decisions on most critical issues every session are made by 10 legislators serving on conference committees. The Humphrey Institute study found the conference committee system undermined the integrity of the legislative process, led to a concentration of power rather than a check against power, and made the legislative process less deliberative.
While Minnesotans pay more for two legislative bodies, nobody suggests that we would be better served by two school boards, two city councils, or by two church boards. In no other institution of human endeavor are we likely to find duplicate governing bodies. We would gladly support the additional cost of a two-house legislature if there were evidence to support that better policymaking resulted.
We are convinced that a single-house legislature would be more open, understandable, and accessible to citizens. The end of session multitude of House-Senate conference committees with out-of-sight deal making and the resulting flurry of last-minute processing of volumes of legislation would be eliminated.
A single house would improve accountability of legislators. No longer could a legislator blame the other body for what happened or failed to happen, or defend a provision that he or she voted for because it was in a conference committee report that could not be amended. No longer would legislators be merely staking out negotiating positions for the conference committees.
A single house would result in less concentration of power because every provision of every bill would be subject to approval or amendment by every legislator, not just a few members of a conference committee.
We believe that a single house legislature would produce more deliberative and thoughtful policymaking.
