Book Reviews California legislature as a 'school for politics' By JACK R. VAN DER SLIK

William K. Muir Jr. Legislature: California's School for Politics. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1983, xiv + 219 pp. $19.

MUIR HAS written a delightful and erudite book on the California legislature which should be read by participants and observers of state politics everywhere. It combines analytical clarity with an insider's feel for nuances, detailed knowledge of events and the larger contours of policymaking.

Legislature adds substance and intellectual weight to a growing body of legislative insights based upon a research method described by Richard Fenno as "one of soaking and poking — or just hanging around." For example, the book contains only two tables (and one is in a footnote) of numerical data and no calibration of response rates and interview callbacks. But it is a systemic interpretation of pentrating observation concentrated during the 1975-1976 session, when Muir served as a committe staffer, and 1977-1978, when the author conducted lengthy interviews, with members chosen for their "eloquence, diversity and availability." That the book has but recently been published is no liability. It is not written for immediacy, but to relate contemporary practice to considerations of what might be and what ought to be.

To explain what he has seen and intuited about the California legislature (mostly the Assembly, the 80-member lower chamber), Muir chose the analogy of the school — legislators are the scholars, committees have curricula, lobbyists are the outside faculty, staff serve as teaching assistants and guest lecturers include an occasional Nobel laureate. If the analogy is strained at points, it provides insight on why information is shared, not hoarded, in the legislature. The sharers get respect, get their bills through, get opportunities for high positions in and out of government and get the benefits of specialization and reciprocity from their colleagues.

The similarities between the California legislature and Illinois' are numerous. Two, for which both are sometimes criticized, are noteworthy. One is the individual author system. "The author system obliged each [bill] author to solicit legal, informational, and analytical assistance from whatever quarter, determine the timing and tactics of each move, obtain publicity, organize witnesses, 'mark up' his own bills, lead debate on the floor, marshall his forces, and defend his bill against the governor's veto." Muir's point is the author system, practiced similarly in Illinois, produces a superior process and greater member vitality when compared to the congressional environment where senior members dominate the bill process.

A related similarity is the high volume of bills introduced into the legislature. Muir notes that a commonly urged "reform" would limit the number of bills an individual legislator could introduce. However, he argues that sound legislation, competently "taught," should and did pass in California. Thus the "assembly encouraged its best legislators to run with as many proposals as they could manage competently, at the same time demanding of them scrupulous conduct, unimpeachable veracity and lucid presentations. Bill limitations . . . would have been unnecessary to discipline the worst legislators and would have seriously impeded the performance of the best." Illinois observers are less certain that their legislature deals with its plentitude of bills on their merits.

The Illinois General Assembly is different from the California legislature in a variety of ways. Several, it seems to me, reflect the differing state political cultures as identified by Daniel Elazar. California's is moralistic — emphasizing citizen duty, an aggressive role for government as a regulator, bureaucratic efficiency and neutral competence, and nonpartisan staffing and issue development. Illinois' culture is individualistic. Politics is just another form of business, best pursued by professionals rather than volunteers. The government bureaucracy should be good, but it should also provide patronage, friendship and favors to its supporters.

Parties should be strong, structured to pursue their functions and interests as well as any business. Organization members work for benefits — pay, favors and the fun of being part of the action. When two parties are competitive and distinct, as they are in Illinois, politics is partisan and bipartisan, but never non-partisan.

Thus, a couple of characteristics that deeply color the legislative process in California are definitely at odds with current practice in Illinois. Staff has a much greater role in the development and resolution of policy issues in California, and key elements are nonpartisan — committee, staff, the Office of the Legislative Analyst (which provides legislators detailed analyses of the governor's budget) and the Third Reading Analysis (nonpartisan bill analyses provided to every legislator before debate on third reading). In Illinois, which has highly professional nonpartisan support agencies such as the Legislative Reference Bureau, the Legislative Council, the Legislative Audit Commission, the Economic and Fiscal Commission, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules and the Legislative Information System, the nonpartisan staff services are decentralized and kept at arm's length from the flow of policy enactments. Bill analyses are competitively produced by partisan staff appointed by, and serving committees in behalf of, the partisan legislative leaders.

A second difference is in the styles for obtaining issue resolution and compromise. Muir's description of legislative norms takes on a highly moralistic tone reflective of the California process. One example is what he calls "terrorism." "Terrorism occurred when legislators or lobbyists dominated a legislator on an issue by threatening an innocent hostage unrelated to the matter at hand." In Illinois, taking bills hostage is a way of life. Democrats do it to Republicans and vice versa; the House does it to the Senate, and vice versa; and the governor does it to the General Assembly, and vice versa. In a politically balanced state, "hostage taking" is often preliminary to bargains and compromises between and across the members and leaders of our partisanly divided, Madisonian system of checks and balances.

California has a good legislature, and Muir's book provides keen insights about it. But his is not a comprehensive view of how excellent legislatures work. The Illinois General Assembly works quite as well, but its fabric is different in texture and more partisan in hue.

Jack R. Van Der Slik is senior scholar in the Illinois Legislative Studies Center at Sangamon State University, Springfield. Van Der Slik is currently at work writing a book about the legislative process in the Illinois General Assembly.

August 1983 | Illinois Issues | 24