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|  | CHEYENNE - We in Wyoming congratulate ourselves for having a “citizen Legislature,” entitling us to claim moral and practical superiority over nearly year-round sessions in other states. Our term suggests a legislative body that draws its members from regular folks who remember the regular folks who elect them for these short, manageable sessions of the Wyoming Legislature.
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That doesn’t help describe who serves in the Wyoming Legislature and how well they do it. After all, people in Colorado claim to have a “citizen” Legislature and they meet five months of the year.
There’s more to being a citizen legislature than having short sessions or representing a cozy friendly population of 500,000, and Wyoming misses the mark on some important points. A citizen legislator brings to the job an eagerness to learn beyond what he knows from his own occupation or community, to care about other interests and to hear what people are saying.
What makes a good legislator, according to 14-year legislative veteran Senate President John Schiffer, is an open mind, curiosity and energy to develop expertise in new areas. Also courtesy and an ability to put conflicts aside. Also some healthy skepticism.
Some in the Wyoming Legislature have these qualities and some don’t, and “citizen” doesn’t have anything to do with it. The worst ones indulge their prejudices and narrow interests and resent challenging information, or they swallow whole lobbyists’ offerings without question. The best are thoughtful, questioning, nonpartisan statesmen.
Schiffer acknowledges the body isn’t a cross-section of Wyoming’s population. It couldn’t be. It may be a part-time job, but it still requires someone who can leave family and job for 40- or 20-day sessions in Cheyenne and give several weeks in the interim for a piddling allowance
Consequently, our legislature boasts a fair number of retired and self-employed people and distinctly lacks hourly wage-earners. Among the 90 members, 22 are retired or semi-retired, according to self-reported biographies submitted to the Legislative Service Office. Eleven are in agriculture, traditionally well represented in the Wyoming Legislature. Twelve are lawyers and 11 are educators. (School districts are very good about accommodating legislative service, and teachers usually represent school issues very well.) No waitresses or plumbers in the bunch.
Most lawmakers must spend their own money to cover the time and expenses of service, which disqualifies anyone from serving who cannot afford to subsidize it. They get $85 per day for lodging and food. The 2008 Legislature is raising that to $109 a day, but that is woefully inadequate.
It might work with special legislator rates in Cheyenne. But if you can find a room in Rock Springs, it will cost more than $109, and you’re buying your own meals. Legislators receive $150 a day in salary when they meet during sessions or in interim committees. A new pay scheme to add compensation for interim work starts in 2009, which will help.
In fact, interim work is expanding. The brevity of the sessions – a bragging point for a citizen legislature -- is possible only because so much work is done between sessions.
We boast about the legislators’ being non-professional, with no individual staff or office space in the Capitol, but that’s not the same as being “citizen.” And it’s not necessarily a good thing. The lack of staff means only that lawmakers are more dependent on lobbyists, most of whom have staffs and produce reams of self-serving research. Some lawmakers take the time and trouble to do their own research. Others don’t have the time or don’t bother.
A number of our “citizen” legislators have trouble dealing with the tumultuous session and complain of harassment if they get more than a handful of contacts from passionate citizens. They hang a virtual sign on their desks: “Do not disturb.”
The 2008 Legislature helped move itself a little closer to the idea of being citizen-friendly, but it rejected two opportunities to make things better.
To their credit, lawmakers approved a new $2.5 million electronic system for filing reports of election campaign contributions and expenses. For the first time, citizens will be able to go online, at home in Rozette or Farson, and search campaign finance reports filed at the Secretary of State’s office.
Also, legislative leaders are looking into the possibility of electronic voting, which is an important piece of accountability to constituents.
To their discredit, legislators increased the amount of money people and political action committees may contribute to individual candidates during an election cycle. The result is that the candidate with wealthy friends who is favored by well-endowed PACS will quickly out-raise the candidate with friends of modest means. The reality is that the best-funded campaigns usually succeed. Starting with the next two-year election cycle, people can give $3,500 per election to individual campaigns, more than tripling the current $1,000 limit. PACS will be able to contribute $5,800 per election to statewide races and $2,900 to other races. The overall limit a person can contribute, $25,000, is completely gone. And last-minute donations of $1,500 from candidates’ family members can be reported after the election.
Wyoming legislators also endorsed the idea that it should be virtually impossible – not just difficult – for citizens to put issues directly on a statewide ballot. Far from the direct democracy of the initiative practiced in California or Oregon, for example, Wyoming voters rarely see any citizen-generated ballot issues. In the past 40 years, only eight initiatives have qualified for the ballot in Wyoming.
But lawmakers still fear making ballot access too easy.
The initiative and referendum provision in our Constitution requires people to gather signatures equal to 15 percent of the voters in the previous general election, in two-thirds of the counties. That geographic requirement was added (and approved by voters) after the now discredited term limit initiative of 1992.
Legislators now want to base the geographic requirement on state Senate districts, not counties, to avoid a constitutional challenge.
But the geographic requirement still combines with the practically unattainable 15 percent signature threshold to bar access to the ballot by any but the very wealthy who can pay signature-gatherers. So much for the citizen.
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