My experience has shown, as I served in
both houses of the legislature, that there
was so much sleight of hand, that the prob-
lem was if we did not do too much in gov-
ernment we did too little. As the days go
on and the years into the future we are
going to have great problems to face, and
I wonder if we can afford the luxury of a
lot of elected officials.
I think that the time has come for us
to meet the problems of the people, and
there is no question in my mind that a
small, visible body can do it more effec-
tively.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, I yield five minutes to Mr. Gilchrist.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gilchrist.
DELEGATE GILCHRIST: Mr. Chair-
man, ladies and gentlemen of the Conven-
tion: I was accused at one point in the de-
bate on this in our Committee of being
the non-resident expert from Nebraska. I
reached this status because I thought I
would profit by looking at Nebraska's ex-
perience with the unicameral legislature,
and find out what their background was,
what the origins of the system were, and
how it had proved out in practice.
I might say that the idea of the uni-
cameral legislature in Nebraska originated
in 1913 with a man named Norton.
In 1932 or 1933 George W. Norris, a
senator, then on the outs with the Repub-
lican Party to which he belonged, picked
up the idea and threw it into the Nebraska
election as a constitutional amendment.
Senator Norris did this on a very cute
basis. In the depths of the depression the
Nebraska legislature, following the Roose-
velt landslide in 1932, had been completely
changed; almost every face was new. They
had a horrible session. They were totally
unable to cope with the problems which
appeared before them.
On top of this, the Senator decided that
it would be a good idea to reduce costs, and
that it could be sold on this basis. They
made up a three section amendment to the
Constitution of Nebraska, providing that
the total salary of the members of the
House in this new body should be $37,500,
for all the members, thus producing the
beneficent salary of $872 per legislator.
He put together this proposal and sand-
wiched it in on the ballot between a pro-
posal to repeal prohibition in Nebraska and |
a proposal to reintroduce pari-mutuel bet-
ting. All three passed.
Following this, I thought it would be
useful to take a look and see what kind of
services Nebraska has produced and what
kind of results this system has produced.
I found that Nebraska, with a popula-
tion of about half that of the State of
Maryland, has a budget about one-fourth
that of the State of Maryland, a larger per-
centage of which is devoted to legislative
expenditures than in Maryland. I found
that they are operating under a Constitu-
tion which has been amended more than a
hundred times, including such amendments
as in 1920 adopting the English language
as the official language of Nebraska.
I found that they paid their jurists the
43rd salary in the nation in the order of
pay. I found that a legislature of 49 people
requires 19 committees to do its work.
When I looked to see what the arguments
were for this, I found among them the
League of Women Voters memorandum of
recent years on why the unicameral system
works in Nebraska, which states that it is
more representative because legislative dis-
tricts were set up with population as the
determining factor. We have that.
The rules have been simplified to provide
for most careful consideration of proposed
legislation. Eagleton will take care of that.
Research facilities are available to the
membership. This is also an Eagleton pro-
posal.
The system eliminates conference com-
mittees and fixes responsibility for action
in the legislature. There are Eagleton pro-
posals on this.
By the election on a non-partisan basis
the members vote on principle rather than
on party line, and even Mr. Hanson has
not suggested that we adopt non-partisan
procedures. I do not know whether he ex-
pects them to vote on party line rather than
on principle, because of this remark.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gilchrist,
you have fifty seconds.
DELEGATE GILCHRIST: The present
system has attracted men who would not
otherwise serve.
The Nebraska experience has been no
better and probably no worse than the rest
of the states.
One person appeared before us, a Ne-
braskan who spent seven and a half years |
