upon the often stated proposition that
people do not know what is happening until
one house has passed the legislation. We
of the minority believe that this is not a
compliment to bicameralism but a serious
indictment of it. That it is so difficult for
the ordinary citizen to comprehend that he
cannot understand what has occurred until
one house has acted, and as the facts indi-
cate, that legislation does not get to the
second house until it is almost too late for
it to be given careful consideration, proves
that the facade created by the bicameral
system of careful second consideration
simply is that, a facade, and does not in-
volve citizens in a full participation in the
legislative affairs of their state.
We believe rather that legislation should
be under constant review from its initia-
tion and introduction until its final passage.
We think, Mr. Chairman, that the second
house is not now, has never been and is not
likely to be an adequate safeguard against
sloppy legislation. The only adequate safe-
guard is to provide a strong and a respon-
sible legislature, and so structured that we
can expect, within reason, that the be-
havior of each member will be the most
responsible.
Thank you.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any ques-
tions of the minority spokesman for pur-
poses of clarification of the Minority Re-
port?
Delegate Koger.
DELEGATE KOGER: I wonder if your
Committee considered how much might be
saved in printing bills by printing just for
one house?
DELEGATE HANSON: I do not believe
that it did. This would be a consideration.
I think that the experience of Nebraska,
for example, has indicated that not only is
there a saving in the printing of bills just
in the total number or the duplicates in
each house, but that actually fewer bills
were introduced when the legislature there
converted from a bicameral to a unicameral
system.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any
further questions of the minority spokes-
man?
Delegate Byrnes?
DELEGATE BYRNES: Recognizing
that one of the values of bicameralism is
that the one house considers bills more
deeply than the other house, would you |
think that we could have the unicameral
system without a continuous session? That
is, referring now to the volume of bills
that go before the General Assembly every
year.
DELEGATE HANSON: I think it would
be possible to have a unicameral system
without a continuous session. I think
whether we have a unicameral or a bicam-
eral legislature, as the committee report
suggests, greater consideration toward
flexibility is needed in the ability of the
General Assembly to determine its session.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any
further questions of the minority spokes-
man?
Delegate Fornos?
DELEGATE FORNOS: Have you given
consideration to the one major problem that
has been pointed out in the Nebraska uni-
cameral situation, that they have a non-
partisan system?
Certainly you are not advocating that,
are you?
DELEGATE HANSON: I am certainly
not advocating non-partisanship and I think
I can speak with confidence for the other
members of the minority in that none of us
are considering a non-partisan system of
election.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Bushong?
DELEGATE BUSHONG: He answered
the question.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there further
questions for purposes of clarification?
Delegate Bennett?
DELEGATE BENNETT: Mr. Chair-
man, would Mr. Hanson repeat those fig-
ures again on the percentage of legislation
that was enacted in the closing days of the
legislature?
DELEGATE HANSON: Yes. On page
6 of the minority report, we present a
table which indicates that in the ninth and
tenth weeks of the General Assembly, which
are the last few weeks, in 1966, 82 per cent
of all bills passed were enacted, and in
1967, 71 per cent of all bills passed were
enacted. On the succeeding page, we indi-
cate that if one excludes local laws, which
we think to be a significant exclusion, 45
per cent of the House bills did not reach
the Senate until the last ten days, and that
in that same session, this year, 34 per cent
of the general bills moving from the Sen-
ate to the House did not reach the House |
