This isn't the way to reform the state legislature

Editorial by Burlington Times-News, November 3, 2015.

Most years, the leaders of the General Assembly try to wind things up in July. In 2015, however, they lingered long past Labor Day and nearly made it to Halloween.

Now a bipartisan group — including the likes of former Chief Justice Burleigh Mitchell and former state Attorney General Rufus Edmisten — is trying to push some reforms to prevent all that from happening again.

Unfortunately, the cures that are being bandied about would probably be worse than the disease.

Rep. Gary Pendleton, the Raleigh Republican who’s the point man for the group, says he’ll introduce amendments to the state constitution to limit legislative sessions to 90 days in odd-numbered years (when legislators are supposed to write up the state’s two-year budget) and 45 days in off years — the so-called “short session.”

He also wants to extend legislators’ terms from two years to four years.

Supporters want to go back to the concept of “citizen legislators,” when ordinary folks would handle the state’s business. Back then a farmer, in theory, could leave his property for a few days in the off-season to spend a few hours writing laws in Raleigh then head home. The same could be accomplished for men or women in jobs. Perhaps a short leave for a week or two would do the trick. As it stands now, only retirees, the independently wealthy, lawyers or those who operate large businesses have the time or operating cash to be out of work for long stretches of time.

As more than one commentator has pointed out we really haven’t had many “just-folks” legislators since the days of the milkman, the full-service gas station and Ernestine the telephone operator. That’s even truer in Washington where Congress used to go home for the summer to beat the heat. Thank air-conditioning for a lot of bad legislation.

The fact is, few ordinary citizens can even afford to take the minimum 45 straight days off from work, even if they can get their bosses to give them time off. Pendleton, by the way, is a retired general who runs a financial consulting business.

Limits on how long terms can run will not change that situation very much.

Cramming all the legislative business into three months, or six weeks, however, is almost certainly guaranteed to make the legislature run worse.

North Carolina state government is a big business, and the details of running it are tricky. (Just consider the intricacies of the Medicaid reform bill, which Republican leaders rushed through in the legislature’s waning days.)

To give these bills proper study and care requires time. Given a 90-day, or a 45-day deadline, time would be the last thing legislators had. There would be less time for public hearings, less time for committee debate, less time for voters to organize protests when it appears the legislature is about to do something wacky.

In practice, the General Assembly would be reduced to a version of old Russian Supreme Soviet — a sham legislature called together or a few days every year to rubber-stamp bills prepared by lobbyists, committee staffers, state officials and other leaders whom the voters didn’t elect.

As for extending the legislators’ terms, that would only make them less responsive to the voters.

The legislature needs reforming, especially in procedure. This year, the state Senate made a bad habit of cramming lots of barely debated policy changes into omnibus bills running to hundreds of pages. That shouldn’t happen. More discipline is needed in the budgeting process and timing.

Shortening sessions to an unreasonable rush, however, is not the way to get this done.

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