THE OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE* M. H. MERRILL University of Oklahoma It would be impossible to give, in the space of time available for this paper, a complete survey of the Oklahoma Legislature. It will be my purpose, therefore, to sketch very briefly, its structure, organization, and powers, and to devote the major portion of my attention to a discussion of some of the outstanding weaknesses of our legislative system and to a suggested program for eliminating these weak nesses. Composition The Oklahoma Legislature, like other state lawmaking bodies, consists of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate consists of forty-four members, chosen by popular vote from districts, each district being represented by either one or two senators. The term of senators is four years, one-half of them retiring every two years. The House of Representatives has a membership, fluctuating in number from one session to another, with one hundred as the basic figure. The term of representatives is two years, and an entirely new House is elected each biennium. Members of the Legislature must be qualified electors of the district from which they are chosen and must continue to reside therein during their term of office. Senators must be twenty-five years of age; representatives, twenty-one.1 Legislature are held biennially Regular sessions of the in the odd-numbered years. by the Governor at any time. on the duration of legislative *Paper read at the Third Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, Norman, Oklahoma, March 24, 1922. 1Oklahoma Constitution, Art. V, Secs. 9, 9a, 10. 2Ibid., Art. V, Secs. 26, 27; Art. VI, Sec. 7. but as the compensation of members is fixed at six dollars per day for the first sixty days of the session, and is limited to two dollars per day thereafter, the legislators finish the business of the session as soon after the expiration of the sixty days as is possible. Limitations Subject to constitutional limitations, the authority of the Legislature extends to all rightful subjects of legislation. The constitutional limitations include the familiar restrictions placed by the United States Constitution upon all states, and limitations imposed by the Oklahoma constitution. These last may be classified broadly into four groups: First, restrictions designed primarily to protect the rights and liberty of the individual; and placed in that section of the Constitution designated as the Bill of Rights.3 These provisions are very general in their terms, and whether any legislative act is in violation of them is a matter for judicial determination. The second class consists of restrictions specifically forbidding the Legislature to enact laws upon certain subjects or to pass certain types of legislation with regard to permitted subjects, and are imposed not as a protection of the rights and liberties of the individual citizen, but because in the opinion of the framers of the constitution, the best interests of the state as a whole required that these subjects be removed from the domain of legislative action. An example of these provisions is that prohibiting the Legislature from granting exclusive rights, privileges or immunities to any person, corporation, or association. Restrictions of the third class consist of a number of constitutional provisions prescribing the procedure by which laws may be passed. These requirements add considerably to the complicated legislative procedure, which, as we shall see, is a factor in legislative inefficiency. Additional restrictions upon the power of the 3Oklahoma Constitution, Art. II. 4Ibid., Art. V, Sec. 51. Legislature arise out of the fact that the framers of the Constitution saw fit to include in that instrument many provisions of the type usually embodied in legislative enactments, especially in regard to such subjects as the state judicial system, corporations, and revenue and taxation. Since the Constitution cannot be modified by legislative enactment, the effect of these provisions is to reduce the power of the Legislature over the subjects covered by them. Organization and Procedure Legislative organization and procedure follow in their general characteristics the organization and the parliamentary practice prevailing among lawmaking bodies of AngloSaxon countries. Because of this substantial similarity, it is deemed unprofitable to enter into a detailed examination of them. It is sufficient to say that the effect of many of the rules is to make of legislation a complicated and technical task, which requires the largest part of a member's first term to comprehend, and to impose such a burden upon effective work that they are frequently honored in the breach. When a bill has successfully made its way through both houses, it still may be killed by the veto power lodged in the hands of the Governor. A veto may be overridden by the customary two-thirds vote.5 Defects of the Legislature Throughout the United States there is a widespread dissatisfaction with the state legislatures. Their ability and their motives are alike under suspicion. This distrust of the representatives of the people holds an especially prominent place in the public opinion of Oklahoma. Conversations with men and women representing every class in the state reveal a general feeling that for the most part legislators are not all that they should be, that the Legislature itself is a detriment to the state, albeit an unavoidable one, 5Oklahoma Constitution, Art. VI, Secs. 11, 12. that the legislative sessions are to be anticipated with foreboding, endured with patience and long-suffering, and remembered with relief at their close. The prevalence of such sentiments should arouse more than mere regret. When the people feel that no good can come from the Legislature, that it cannot or will not cope with the problems of the time, then all the foundations of social order are endangered. It therefore behooves us to examine the basis of this feeling, to attempt an understanding of the condition from which it springs, and to seek a remedy for those conditions. Let it be said first that much of the popular criticism of our lawmakers is unjustified in fact. Gross corruption does not run riot in the Oklahoma Legislature. The great majority of the members are law-abiding, honest and sincere in private life, and there is no sinister alchemy in selection to public office that transmutes such a man into a corrupt and self-seeking legislator. Moreover, the Legislature is not, as the people's fancy so often pictures it, a "do-nothing" body. Whatever we may think about the quality of the result produced, we must admit that it is the product of strenuous labor. The member who takes his job seriously, as most of them do, finds twenty-four hours too short a time to do all that the day brings him. Committee meetings, caucuses, the preparation of measures and the study of those prepared by others, visits or messages from his constituents, the advances of lobbyists of one variety or another, the numerous informal conferences that attend the process of legislation, plus the regular routine of the daily sessions all make up a sum total of work which it seems that no man could accomplish, yet many attempt it and succeed to some degree. But despite all of the good intentions and all of the honest effort that are devoted to the work of the Legislature, it must be admitted that the lawmaking branch of our government, judged by its fruits, falls far short of even that degree of perfection to which man's institutions may attain. "Freak" legislation is by no means uncommon. Still more common is the enactment of laws that fail utterly to accom plish the purpose for which they were proposed. Such failures may be due either to mistaken policy or to an inability to see how a law, theoretically correct, will work in practice. It is no uncommon thing for one Legislature to be confronted with the necessity of repealing or amending an act of its immediate predecessor. Other measures which may be entirely wise and expedient in their policy are marred by careless or inexpert drafting. Some of the errors due to this cause are quite amusing. The state examiner and inspector has been referred to as the "examiner and suspector." In 1915 an appropriation was made for the purpose of equipping "immediate sleeping quarters" at the state school for the deaf. All honey offered for sale within the state must be labeled imitation unless it has been "home-made by bees."s Admission to the Confederate Soldiers home is open to those who "enlisted and served in the Army and Navy of the Confederate States of America during the Civil and during the World War in 1917 and 1918." More serious are those faults which come, not from technical errors in language, but from a failure to choose means appropriate to the end which the law is to accomplish. Many of our statutes are entirely inoperative, or worse, operate ineffectively and perniciously, simply because of unskilled preparation. Another very prolific source of popular distrust of the Legislature is the amount of time devoted, both by individuals and by groups, to playing "politics." In the best sense of the term politics-the attempt to put a certain governmental program into effect, or to crystallize that program in the form of an issue to be supported or rejected by the people is a necessary and useful part of democratic government. When it is perverted into principleless maneuvering for partisan advantage, or into a system of barter by which local or special interests are set off against each "Revised Laws 1910, Sec. 8119. "Session Laws 1915, Chap. 204. Revised Laws 1910, Sec. 6932. 'Session Laws 1919, Chap. 196. |