Still another wrinkle involves the timing of review. An agency scheduled to be reviewed every five years may be dealing with long-term problems, and it may be impossible to show substantial results within the review period. The task of establishing an agency's effectiveness is considerably more difficult when the problems it is tackling may not be solved for decades.

Conversely, what happens when four years of overall good performance is overshadowed by scandal or mismanagement which surfaces shortly before or during the review process? Say, for example, during the review period a scandal erupts involving payoffs to one or several agency officials. It is not inconceivable that a burst of bad publicity at a crucial stage in the review process could result in political pressure to let an entire agency or program terminate. Legislators would have to avoid being unduly swayed by such events.

A final problem with sunset laws is that bureaucrats may begin devoting more time to justifying their existence than to simply doing their jobs. The periodic trauma of near death may have a disheartening impact on agency morale. Sunset laws might even cause an expansion of government, as agencies begin adding personnel to handle the chore of periodically winning an extension of life.

Many of these observations are based on pure speculation; there simply is no experience on which to base any conclusions. Proponents of sunset laws, while insisting the idea offers promise, recognize that there are flaws yet to be discovered and refinements yet to be made. Much will be learned from the Colorado experiment, where Gov. Lamm admits, "We need to see how it works before we go further." Supporters and detractors of sunset laws in Illinois would do well to monitor the Colorado experience closely.

BOOK REVIEW
By W. PAUL NEAL, JR.
Manager of the legislative department and chief lobbyist for the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce, he was an editor and reporter covering Congress and federal agencies in Washington, D.C., and state and local governments in California, Michigan and West Virginia.
Samuel K. Gove, Richard W. Carlson, and Richard J. Carlson,
The Illinois Legislature / Structure and Process. Urbana, Ill. :
Published for the Institute of Government and Public Affairs by the University of Illinois Press, 1976, 189 pages, $5.95.

Explaining the legislative process

FINALLY, there is a basic, understandable primer on the Illinois legislative process. But a warning is in order: this "basic" primer is as complex as the process. It is not the kind of book you pick up for an evening of light diversion. It is, however, the kind of introduction the large incoming freshman class of legislators should keep at their fingertips for consultation. The book may also be the answer for high school and college teachers and students as well as those who want to learn more about what can be a frustrating and confusing process.

"This book describes the Illinois General Assembly — its structure, its process — to give the interested citizen, the student, and indeed the public official (including the legislator), a better understanding of this very complex and important legislative body." This goal, stated in the preface, is carried out admirably by an extremely well qualified team of authors. Professor Gove, who developed the book's concept and edited the manuscript, is director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs of the University of Illinois and has supervised hundreds of legislative interns in the Illinois General Assembly, including his two co-authors, Richard W. Carlson, who is now on the staff of the Illinois Senate, and Richard J. Carlson, who is now director of research for the Council of State Governments in Lexington, Ky.

The book grew out of a grant from the American Political Science Association and has been in development for eight years.
The Illinois legislature will explain:
Who the players are in the Illinois legislative process;
What the roles are of these players and how they interact;
The mechanics of legislative operation;
The nuts and bolts of bill passage;
The House and Senate rules at the time of publication of the book;
The role of legislative staffs;
Some recent, but dated, statistical studies on the flow of legislation, number of bills introduced and passed compared with prior years, committee disposal of bills (which still need procedural improvement), etc.

It is these last three areas which the authors use as an academic base to build an argument for increasing the professionalization of the staff and the smoother flow of legislation. Other arguments could have been developed, yet the authors have kept to their own disclaimer noted in the preface: ". . . we do not necessarily think that all is well with the legislative system, but our self-designated role is not to suggest reorganizations or reforms. We leave this to others. Possibly our information and data will be helpful to those who do want to revise the process."

In their discussion of the new Constitution and changes in legislative rules, the authors seem to be a bit too optimistic about how these changes will improve legislative performance. Some things are eternal and political infighting and compromise, deal-making and the pork barrel continue as before. The complete "dance of legislation" is played to a political tune in any state, and in Illinois the keen competition between the political parties, regional, economic and issue-oriented groups can sometimes create more of a dissonant "jam session" than a symphonic consensus.

Often, the legislative staff can be relegated to providing incidental music for the legislators who are playing the tune, and the rules become a melody line to be improvised on by the leading musicians. I don't mean to diminish the role of the staff as a vital component of the legislative process. On the contrary, without such staff expertise, the cacophony of statute content could swell to an even more confusing din, and without the rules, no score would exist for direction by the leadership. Political compromise is an art, not a science, since the human, emotional needs of the legislators and their constituents have as much, and often more, effect on legislative enactment as does the logical development of bill content or procedure.

There are several things this book will not tell you, but then it was not designed to do so. It will tell you how the process works and give you a reliable overview of the structure, which is particularly good for newcomers who have not been intimately involved in the process.

February 1977 / Illinois Issues / 23