Articles from January 2008
January 25, 2008
Look Out! Session's about to begin!
New legislative sessions will be getting under way soon and for legislative junkies like me this is an exciting time of the year. I would compare it to that feeling just before football season when everybody thinks their team has a chance to win it all. I usually go out and buy the pre-season football magazines to check out roster changes, home and away schedules and glean any info I can on possible new offensive and defensive schemes.
I am beginning to do the same things today for the upcoming legislative session. Term limits are making the rosters of state legislatures change faster than every. By the time many legislators start to understand the process and ascend to a leadership position it is time for them to leave the public eye or start to plot their next elective move outside their current legislative body. I go to the National Conference of State Legislature s home page (ncsl.org) to help me track the players.
Of course one thing that tends to remain constant is the legislative schedules. I am checking out what’s going on this year on my new e-capitol subscription. Oregon, which wouldn’t usually meet this year, is trying out a new budget only session at the urging of Democratic leaders in their Senate.
Others like Texas, Arkansas, Montana, Nevada and North Dakota won’t meet at all.
There are certain bell weather states, that like star players, seem to set the pace for the season. Legislatures in these states more likely than not will begin policy trends that often sweep across their regions if not the nation. My list of bellweathers include California, Massachusetts, Florida, Texas, and Colorado. To keep track of these I look for introduced bill by subject on e-capitol and try to determine what the major pieces of legislation are by subject. Usual suspects include environmental, education, health care insurance, consumer protection, and taxation. The Massachusetts experiment in mandating health care coverage for instance is popping up in many forms around the country in various forms of proposed legislation this session. The anti-sprawl legislation that help flip the Colorado legislature to Democratic control is being considered elsewhere now.
Like weather in football the political and economic environment of each legislative session can shape what plays lawmakers can successfully call. . 2008 is an election year which always affects behaviors in legislatures. There will be more emphasis on partisan politics as the control of a number of legislative bodies is up for grabs. Last session for instance the Oklahoma Senate surprised everyone by basically having a productive and cooperative session despite having co-Senate leaders with a 24-24 tie. Don’t expect such cooperation this session as the Republicans have their first change to wrest control in that state’s history.
The other strong environmental force is the economy. State coffers have been at record highs since the end of an economic downturn in 2003. The National Governor’s Association (nga.org) reports some of the highest year end budget balances in history. Don’t count on that to last through this session. The business cycle has not been repealed. The economy is slowing and corporate income tax collections around the country are down. Balancing the budget will be one of the most difficult problems in states like California this year. Even energy producing states that have benefited from higher oil and gas revenues are starting to feel the pinch.
What does that mean? Who knows for sure. But there will be pressure from teachers and state workers to restore some the tax base given up during good economic times while business groups will argue that an economic downturn is the worst time to hike taxes.
January 18, 2008
'It's the Economy Stupid'
With the Presidential campaign in full swing I am reminded of the famous line used by the Clinton loyalists in their first term campaign – “It’s the economy stupid”
That line of course referred to keeping on message to voters but I think it is equally applicable to understanding the chaos of a legislative session. Legislation as diverse as lawsuit reform, transportation funding, testing of school children, and tax credits are more often explained by different interest groups desire to change or enhance a state’s (or their own) economy. States have not only become the “Laboratories of Democracy” but the test labs for economic development theories.
For instance lawsuit reform is a major issue in many states. Medical and business advocacy groups have transformed this policy matter into a matter of economic competitiveness rather than a judicial matter. Check out the United States Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform at www.instituteforlegalreform.com. The American Bar Association will give you an alternative perspective at http://www.abanet.org/barserv/medmal.
You can also find that major national policy organizations are aligning their education recommendations around workforce and global competitiveness issues. You may want to go the Education Commission of the State’s briefing memo the newsroom at www.ecs.org. That memo will tell you how business view education reform as a prime mover in creating “engines for regional economic development and workforce development. The National Conference of State Legislatures issue briefs can help you understand what policies are being debated to encourage global competitiveness in Science, Math and Engineering education at www.ncsl.org/programs/educ/STEMMain.htm.
A stop by the Associated General Contractors web site can help you make sense of what is going on in legislative activity related to the economy of road building in the states. Visit www.agc.org/cs/advocacy/legislative.
I have found one of the best places to go to keep up with state tax law trends in the Federation of State Tax Administrators. At their site - www.taxadmin.org/ you can find out tax burdens, rates and collections for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
www.eCapitol.net can be your one stop source for making sense of all this chaos of legislation moving through the various legislatures. You can develop personalized bill tracking that can help you spot trends, provide analyses and put you in touch with links like the ones mentioned above to provide background and perspective across the 50 states. This tool will make help you make sense of the economic aspects of state legislative activity throughout the nation and not feel “stupid”