[Vision2020] Unusual Bills Come to Statehouses

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (May 22, 2011) Spokesman-Review.

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Unusual bills come to statehouses after shift toward tea party

BOISE – It wasn’t just in Idaho that state lawmakers ventured onto unusual
ground this year, attempting to unilaterally nullify a federal law,
allowing guns on college campuses and nearly cutting off unemployed
Idahoans from receiving extended unemployment benefits on grounds that the
benefits will make them lazy.

Montana lawmakers backed a bill to let local sheriffs stop federal law
enforcement officers from making arrests in their counties, though the
governor vetoed it. They also debated measures to legalize hunting with a
hand-thrown spear and declare global warming “beneficial to the welfare
and business climate of Montana.”

Florida legislators outlawed droopy pants on schoolkids that show their
underwear. Illinois made it legal to pick up road-killed animals for food
or fur, saying it’ll clean up the roads.

Utah lawmakers ordered schools to teach kids that the United States is a
“compound constitutional republic” rather than a democracy, after the
bill’s sponsor said “schools from coast to coast are indoctrinating
children to socialism.” South Carolina looked at setting up its own gold
or silver currency in case the Federal Reserve system fails. And a Georgia
lawmaker pushed unsuccessfully to abolish drivers licenses because he said
requiring them violates people’s “inalienable right” to travel.

“I don’t know how many of these are going to become laws or withstand
constitutional scrutiny, but it does seem like you have a wider range of
ideas that are out there now,” said Seth Masket, a political scientist at
the University of Denver who studies state legislatures. “For those who
are concerned that politicians have just been peddling the same old ideas
for years, this seems like a very good thing. 
 You have some people who
are willing to think outside of the box.”

On the other hand, Masket said, some of the new ideas simply may not work,
due to constitutional, practical or political problems.

The shift in legislative agendas could be related to everything from the
rise of the tea party movement – as the GOP made big statehouse gains
around the country – to newly empowered freshman lawmakers, to national
groups that have an easier time in the Internet age pushing legislation in
multiple states, experts say.

But it also reflects a cultural change, says Alan Rosenthal, a Rutgers
University professor and longtime consultant to state legislatures.
“People listen less and advocate more,” Rosenthal said. “Things change. A
new generation of legislators doesn’t want to hear about what didn’t work
20 years ago.”

Rosenthal also notes today’s more fragmented media landscape. “We used to
have the authority in the television anchor, the Walter Cronkite,” he
said. “It was clear: If Cronkite said it happened, it happened. Now we’ve
got all sorts of competing views and very little authority out there.”

Fifteen states, including Montana, now have term limits on their state
legislatures, sharply increasing turnover and putting pressure on new
lawmakers to make their names quickly. Even in states without term limits,
newer lawmakers seem empowered.

In Idaho, the sponsor this year of the bill seeking to nullify the federal
health care reform law was freshman Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens,
who was serving in his first legislative session. The guns-on-campus bill
was pushed by a second-term lawmaker, Rep. Erik Simpson, R-Idaho Falls.

In the 2010 legislative elections, more than 700 seats nationally switched
from Democratic to Republican hands, reports Gary Moncrief, a Boise State
University political scientist who tracks legislative elections across the
country. “It’s partly just the tenor of the times,” he said.

Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of
California-San Diego who studies state governments, said, “What changes is
when you have a big shift in one direction, suddenly people who are on the
edge of the political spectrum are now in the mainstream, and these things
can pass.”

Political parties are more polarized now than they’ve been in decades,
Rosenthal said. “I think it’s the environment that we’re in now that leads
to more extreme ideas. 
 The pragmatic strain which there has been in
American politics is being kind of replaced by the ideological strain.”
Both still are present, he said, but “the balance is changing.”

Masket said the “inexperience factor” has risen in state legislatures, as
movements like the tea party encouraged people to run who might not have
been involved in politics or political party organizations previously.
“It’s a different breed of candidate,” he said. “It’s people who don’t
have a whole lot of history in the Republican Party who just suddenly got
engaged.”

When people with no political experience enter the process, he said, “They
might bring all sorts of unusual ideas.”

The rise of the tea party also prompted sitting GOP lawmakers to pay
attention to the group’s issues, Rosenthal noted, to “sort of walk that
tightrope and make sure they don’t have a tea party candidate running in
the primary against them.”

Gun-rights advocates have been particularly empowered this year, pushing
legislation in many states. Among the results: In Arizona, in the same
year that a congresswoman was gravely wounded in a deadly mass shooting,
the legislature enacted a new law this year designating a state gun, the
Colt single-action Army revolver.

“That in itself is really remarkable,” Masket said. Gun rights, he said,
are “an issue that really mattered to a lot of the folks that ran last
year, and they’re suddenly in office.” Plus, he said, “There’s really not
much pushback. 
 The conservatives complain a lot that the liberals want
to take away their guns, but the liberals haven’t really been trying to do
that for 20 or 30 years.”

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On the rebound, Moscow . . .

Tom Hansen
Astoria, Oregon

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to
changeand the Realist adjusts his sails."

 - Unknown