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State and Local Government Chapters

MODULE 1Chapter 1: New Directions for State and Local Government

This chapter covers the following:

Studying State and Local Government in the Twenty-First Century State and Local Government Capacity The People: Designers and Consumers of Government Linking Capacity to Results

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:1. The importance of the study of state and local government.2. The factors that account for the increased capacity of state and local governments.3. The challenges that state and local governments face in their efforts to solve problems.4. The underlying importance of people in the study of the institutions, processes, and policies at the state and local level.5. The importance of understanding political culture and its effect in different regions of the country.6. The unique characteristics of the fifty-state system that will be tested as they are increasinglychallenged to face the tasks of the new century in the post-9/11 era.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

The study of state and local government receives less attention than the study of the nationalgovernment. But because nonnational governments are involved in our day-to-day lives, they deserve closer attention. State and local governments are poised to lead the country into the twenty-first century, and they are busy experimenting with new programs and systems to provide public services in an efficient, effective, and equitable manner. Although state and local governments have greater capacity than in the past, they face many challenges in the American system of federalism—a system characterized by conflict and cooperation.During the 1980s, President Reagan’s efforts to devolve powers to the states and cities were madeeasier by the presence of competent, energized nonnational governments. The Clinton administration, despite its emphasis on national goals, recognized the increased capabilities of nonnational governments and sought to enhance their roles as laboratories for policy experimentation. The administrations of George W. Bush, a former governor, have been difficult to evaluate. There has been ample evidence of a willingness to continue to

devolve some responsibilities, but the Bush administration pushed large national programs like No Child Left Behind, allowed the federal government to take over airport security, and created a large new cabinet level bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security. These actions sound more like a Democratic administration but President Bush’s administration has been dominated by international problems and the war of terrorism. During times of international crisis, it is not unusual to see many domestic issues drop out of the limelight. While the national government has been unwilling to face many of the domestic problems of a complex society, it has, at the same time, struggled with a variety of issues such as mounting national debt and a burgeoning trade imbalance. For their part, the states have displayed a capacity to act on policy matters important to them, in part because they have since the 1980s loosened the reins on local governments and increased financial assistance to them, thus increasing local government’s capacity.Modernized state constitutions and institutional restructuring have ensured more streamlined andworkable state governments. The powers of the executive have been strengthened, and professional administrators increasingly staff state bureaucracies. Reapportioned state legislatures, with added staff and higher salaries, have improved those bodies. The establishment of unified court systems has reformed state judicial systems, employment of administrators, and addition of appropriate layers of courts. State and local governments have learned how to increase their effectiveness in the nation’s capital. Seven major associations of nonnational governments or elected officials are supplemented in their lobbying effort by individual state and large-city liaison offices. Further, associations of various nonnational government professionals contribute to this effort. Besides providing information and advice, these groups ensure that the various subnational jurisdictions learn from one another. States are expanding their functions even as the national government reduces its responsibilities. Historically, some states have been innovative leaders and others, followers. But as they come to a larger role in policymaking, more states have become policy innovators or look to their neighbors for advice, information, and models. Means for transmitting information are varied, and often it is done on a regional basis where problems are similar. The quickening flow of innovations has also led to increased interjurisdictional cooperation and fostered a climate that has led to regional organizations created to provide areawide solutions. By solving their own problems, nonnational governments protecttheir power and authority within the federal system.

As they have increased in capability, state and local governments have inevitably come in conflict with the national government. Federal laws and grant requirements impose restrictions on state policy, but states encroach on the national government’s turf, too. Tension has increased in recent years as federally imposed unfunded mandates have provoked state and local government hostility. The federal judiciary sometimes resolves these conflicts, but they may also be aggravated as the federal court rulings lead the national government into areas normally reserved for nonnational governments.Conflicts among states arise out of the tensions associated with

increased activism, and the conflicts threaten resurgence of the states. The uneven distribution of natural resources in the states and the bidding wars among states attempting to attract the same businesses and industry are particular focal points for this interjurisdictional conflict.Three unique characteristics of our fifty-state system (diversity, competitiveness, and resiliency)suggest that nonnational governments can become the new heroes of American federalism. Diversity grows out of different fiscal capacities but is tempered by competitiveness in the federal system, because no state can afford to be too far out of line on taxation and expenditures. This competition stabilizes the federal system. Resiliency describes the ability of state governments to survive and to innovate. With the national government distracted by its own problems, the era of unchallenged national dominance of the federal system is no longer likely. But state governments must still meet the challenge of new demands at the same time that they reduce the size and the cost of government. In the process of meeting these challenges, states are conscious of their reputations. States have their own images and symbols, which influence and reflect public perceptions. These provide a way for understanding states and are important to state governments as they attempt to gain and retain public support for their efforts to reshape themselves.Nonnational governments are moving into the void created as national government seeks to limit its role in many domestic programs, and the “resurgence of the states” continues to increase nonnational governments’ capacity. Although state and local governments have been revitalized, they must still meet the challenges of financial stress and interjurisdictional conflict if they are to be successful in that role in the twenty-first century. There are many challenges in the new century that will require federal and state cooperation, such as dealing with terrorism.

ACE CHAPTER EXAMS – Use ACE chapter link on the course menu

LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR MODULE 1 – MODULE 1 HAS BEEN COMPLETED FOR YOU. SEE LINK TO SAMPLE MODULE SUBMISSON FORM ON THE COURSE MENU.

Your are now ready to apply some of the information included in chapter 1. To do so, please complete the following activities

Link to Metro's Political Science Home Page at http://socsci.mccneb.edu/pos/polscmain.htm

Activity 1 – USE THE MODULE SUBMISSION FORM AND THE ASSIGNMENTS LINK FOR SUBMISSION FOR SUBMISSION.1. Select AND explain two important issues outlined in chapter 1.2. Select two current events stories you have found in either the print, video or online media.3. Explain how these current events are relevant to chapter 1 of the text.

http://online.mccneb.edu/POLS2050WWvanarsdall/Module01/m1activities.htm

Mail a paper outlining your results to the above to me using the Web CT Mail. Click on the mail link in the navigation bar to the left.

Activity 2Go to the Hough Mifflin WebSite for your textbook which is: http://college.hmco.com/polisci/bowman_kearney/state_local_gov_essentials/3e/ace/ace1.html

Take the ACE practice test for Chapter 1and follow the instructions to mail your results to me at: [email protected].

Here is a question for our discussion and course evaluation."What problems did you have completing the task above?"To take part in this discussion, click on the Discussion link in the navigation bar to the left.

HOME WORK FOR MODULE 1 – YOU HOME WORK ASSIGNMENT FOR MODULE 1 IS TO READ CHAPER 2 OF YOUR TEXT IN PREPARATION FOR MODULE 2.

Module 2Chapter 2: Federalism and the States


The Concept of Federalism The History of U.S. Federalism Intergovernmental Relations Models of Federalism Federal Purse Strings The Future of Federalism

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:1. The organizational arrangements for sovereign governments, including federalism.2. The advantages and disadvantages of federalism.3. The historic debates among the framers of the Constitution of 1787 over the allocation of powers between the states and the national government.4. The evolution of the nature of the relationship between the national and state governments and the historic events and court decisions contributing to the changes.5. The manner in which local governments derive their powers within federalism.

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6. The differences among various types of intergovernmental transfers of money.7. The descriptive models used to portray the American federal system.8. The forces that cause the continuing shift in the balance of power and responsibility between the national government and the states.9. The contemporary irritants in intergovernmental relations and how they contribute to the further evolution of American federalism.10. The current trends of American federalism and the impact of the George W. Bush administration.

CHAPTER SUMMARY AND KEY TERMS

Federalism is an important concept for understanding the American political system. The founders of the original United States had to answer the question of the proper allocation of power and responsibility between the states and national government. There are three alternative forms of government the framers could have used: a unitary government, a confederacy, or a federal system. By adopting the Articles of Confederation, they initially established a confederation. Under the Articles of Confederation the nation nearly failed. To rectify the shortcomings, a constitutional convention created a federal system and built into it practical devices to control factions who would otherwise pursue their own ends to the detriment of the larger society. Those safeguards were representative government, three branches of government that contained checks and balances, and a federal system. A federal system is a political arrangement where power is shared between the different levels of government. In the case ofthe United States, federalism shares power between the federal government and the states. There are advantages and disadvantages associated with a federal system. It facilitates management of social and political conflict, promotes administrative efficiency, encourages innovation, maximizes participation, and protects individual freedoms. Among the disadvantages are that coordinating the efforts of multiple governments is difficult, a federal system results in duplication of governmental activities, and local interests may damage the national interest.

As the Constitution of 1787 was being written, the framers were at odds in their efforts to satisfy both large and small states. As part of the Great Compromise, the framers created a lower house based on population and an upper house based on equal state membership, thus protecting the small states. The framers also limited the specific powers of the central government to seventeen and established the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of conflicts between the states and the central government. The Tenth Amendment seemed to reinforce the beliefs of those who favored a state-centered federalism. Supporters of this view argued that the Constitution was a compact among sovereign states, and it became the foundation for southern dissatisfaction before the Civil War. The Supreme Court’s decisions under Chief Justice John Marshall increasingly strengthened the nation centered concept of federalism; the Judiciary Act of 1789, based on the national supremacy clause of the Constitution, established the Court as the final arbiter of legal disputes between the national and state governments.

Rulings based on the Constitution’s necessary and proper clause, the commerce clause, the general welfare clause, and the Fourteenth Amendment inexorably shifted the system to nation-centered federalism.

The U.S. Congress further increased the power and authority of the central government by its broad interpretations of national powers in the regulation of interstate and intrastate commerce and through taxing and spending authority granted it by the Sixteenth Amendment. The national government added authority by pre-emption of state legislation—a power granted it in Article VI of the Constitution. Thus, the configuration of American federalism today bears little relevance to the original division of powers between the central government and the states provided in the Tenth Amendment.

Local governments are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. They are creatures of their own states. In 1868, Iowa Judge John F. Dillon’s ruling on the subject of local government powers established that local governments may exercise only those powers explicitly granted them by the state or those clearly implied by these explicit powers. This has come to be known as “Dillon’s Rule.” The relationship between the states and their local governments is a unitary arrangement, meaning that states are supreme. In recent years, however, most state governments have given local government home rule, which provides some discretion and flexibility in carrying out specifically enumerated powers. About half of the states have carried home rule a step further and granted a very broad range of powers to local governments.

The primary mechanism for revenue transfers from the national government to nonnationalgovernments has been the grants-in-aid. Two major variables in these grants are the amount ofdiscretion given the recipient and the conditions under which the grant is awarded. Revenue sharing affords the most discretion and permits nonnational government to use it for any purpose; categorical grants afford the least discretion. Located somewhere between the two are block grants, which are limited in use to specific functional areas. Grants often require that matching funds be provided by the grant recipient as proof of commitment. Today categorical grants constitute about 90 percent of the total grant funding.

From 1787 until 1932, national and state powers were actively defined as sovereign and equal in their separate spheres of authority. This authority was called dual federalism, which is represented by a “layer cake” model. Franklin Roosevelt’s efforts to deal with the Great Depression in the 1930s produced an increase in national authority and were termed cooperative federalism, which has been represented by a “marble cake” model. The contemporary variations on cooperative federalism have been variously portrayed as creative federalism, picket-fence federalism, and New Federalism. President Nixon called for a reordering of national-state-local relations using the term New Federalism. It was a reaction to centralization and an effort to free nonnational governments from the conditions attached to federal grants by

adopting revenue sharing as a means of carrying on intergovernmental revenue transfer.

In contrast, the main purpose of President Reagan’s plan of the same name was toshrink the size of the national government. The core of Reagan’s effort was “the turnback proposal,” under which the national and state governments would swap certain programs. It failed in Congress, but Reagan chipped away at grant programs and successfully terminated general revenue sharing.

President George H. W. Bush reaffirmed his administration’s support for earlier Reagan efforts and by 1991 he had successfully proposed “turnovers” in transportation and education programs. But his proposals to shift responsibilities on administration and funding of Medicaid, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, food stamps, and Community Development Block Grants met resistance from both the nation’s mayors and governors. President Clinton did not repudiate the goals of New Federalism, but despite his previous experience as a governor he did not champion major shifts in authority or significantly increase federal aid to nonnational governments.

President George W. Bush, also a former governor, has not altered the goals of the New Federalism. However, it is difficult to evaluate President Bush’s efforts to continue devolution. Thus far, his presidency has been dominated by international affairs, terrorism, and implementing some large-scale, national programs like No Child Left Behind, which resembles programs favored by Democrats in the past.

The American federal system has never been static, and the pendulum has swung back and forth over the lifetime of the Republic. Despite the focus on international matters, the pendulum still continues to swing in the direction of the states. As this shift occurs, cooperative federalism is the operative model today, under a variant known as New Federalism. The fact remains that the states have become and will continue to be very important actors in solving the nation’s problems.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR MODULE 2

Your are now ready to apply some of the information included in chapter 2. To do so, please complete the following activities

Link to Metro's Political Science Home Page at http://socsci.mccneb.edu/pos/polscmain.htm

Activity 1 – USE THE MODULE SUBMISSION FORM AND THE ASSIGNMENTS LINK FOR SUBMISSION FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT.1. Select AND explain two important issues outlined in chapter 22. Select two current events stories you have found in either the print,

http://online.mccneb.edu/POLS2050WWvanarsdall/Module01/m1activities.htm

video or online media.3. Explain how these current events are relevant to chapter 2 of the text.

Activity 2 State Net Research. Using the course link on the course menu. Select two states and explain how the issues discussed in activity one are represented in those states.

Activity 2Go to the Hough Mifflin WebSite for your textbook which is: http://college.hmco.com/polisci/bowman_kearney/state_local_gov_essentials/3e/ace/ace1.html

Take the ACE practice test for Chapter 1and follow the instructions to mail your results to me at: [email protected].

Here is a question for our discussion and course evaluation."What problems did you have completing the task above?"To take part in this discussion, click on the Discussion link in the navigation bar to the left.

HOME WORK FOR MODULE 1 – YOU HOME WORK ASSIGNMENT FOR MODULE 2 IS TO READ CHAPER OF YOUR TEXT IN PREPARATION FOR MODULE 3

Module 3 (Chapter3)

Chapter 3: State Constitutions


The Evolution of State Constitutions Weaknesses of Constitutions Constitutional Reform Methods For Constitutional Change State Responsiveness and Constitutional Reform

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:1. How state constitutions are increasingly becoming more favorable to civil rights and civil liberties, and the basis for judicial federalism.

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2. The role of the state constitutions under the American system of dual constitutionalism.3. The origins of early state constitutions.4. Why legislative supremacy was written into the original thirteen states’ constitutions and why power has increasingly shifted toward state governors.5. The origins of and problems with long constitutions that follow a positive-law tradition.6. The essential elements in a state constitution according to the National Municipal League’s Model State Constitution, which reflects a higher-law tradition.7. The methods for amending state constitutions.8. The increased importance of judicial review by state supreme courts and their increasing role as judicial activists.9. The status of revising state constitutions.


State constitutions have evolved to the point where they often provide civil rights greater than those guaranteed in the federal constitution. This phenomenon has been termed judicial federalism and it is reminiscent of the early history of the United States. The original thirteen state constitutions were based largely on the colonial charters and represented limited government by an aristocracy, but they did establish some enduring principles: a bill of rights, separation of powers, and a system of checks and balances. They also reflected distrust toward executive authority and vested most power in the legislatures.

Because legislative bodies had difficulty meeting the demands of a rapid growing society and coping with the changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution, the power of the executive branch was increased. The centralizing power shift was somewhat diluted by pressures in the Jacksonian era for popular election of government officials. The result was an increasingly fragmented executive branch.

Erosion in confidence in state government, as well as broader social and economic changes, led toincreasing amendments and even complete revision of state constitutions in the latter part of the 1800s and early 1900s. By the 1950s, many states had long, archaic, unnecessarily detailed constitutions. Only the original constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts survives, although amended more than one hundred times. It remains a model of the composite wisdom of the foremost political philosophers of the eighteenth century.

Excessive detail in other state constitutions inevitably led to burdensome litigation in the state courts. But constitutional change is a more complex process than legislative enactment of statutes, and resistance to change by special interests slowed efforts to modernize. Nevertheless, supporters of reform eventually gathered a number of influential voices in the 1950s for a return to using state constitutions as fundamental law and the abandonment

of the practice of using them as a catchall for topics best left to statutory law. Most noteworthy among the voices were the Presidential Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (known as the Kestnbaum Commission) and the National Municipal League. The latter developed a Model State Constitution that was to serve as an influential guide for efforts to rewrite state constitutions. The results of these efforts at reform are reflected in many of today’s more concise and practical state constitutions.

State constitutions are political documents, and detailed provisions intended to protect or favor special interests creep into the best of them. Thomas Jefferson thought that it was appropriate to adjust constitutions every twenty years. Two constitutional traditions appear in modern efforts at reform—the positivist-law tradition by which detailed and lengthy documents usurp the lawmaking powers of the legislature, or the higher-law tradition represented by the Massachusetts and U.S. Constitutions and the National Municipal League’s Model State Constitution. There is no one right way, but today the latter formula seems to be most in favor.

There are informal and formal methods for amending state constitutions. Interpretation of the existing constitution to meet new problems by any of the three branches of government constitutes the single informal method. Among those who interpret the constitution, state supreme courts increasingly exercise a right of judicial review, a step that now earns some state courts a reputation as judicial activists.

The formal procedures for constitutional change are legislative proposal, initiative, constitutional convention, and constitutional commission. All involve two basic steps: an initiation step by the legislature or a constitutional initiative by the voters, followed by the second and final step—ratification. The proposed amendment, whatever its origins, requires voter approval.

Initiation by legislative proposal, permitted in all fifty states, is most common and most oftensuccessful. Eighteen states permit citizens to initiate action, but those proposals succeed less often in the ratification step. All fifty states provide for constitutional conventions, and four states consider such conventions every ten or twenty years. Voters tend to be more skeptical of sweeping change, and delegates are well advised to consider presentation of piecemeal change rather than an all-inclusive one.

Constitutional commissions or study commissions may be created by the governor or legislative action in all states. A commission’s efforts are advisory and popular with elected officials because they may avoid volatile issues using the commission as a symbolic effort. In Florida, however, the commission can send its proposals directly to the voters. In all, only twenty-eight commissions have operated in all fifty states since 1970, but they have the capacity to provide high-quality and inexpensive research.

The old-style constitutions inhibited the states’ abilities to cope with change. Revisions carried out in the four decades since the Kestnbaum Commission

report have aided in the modernization of state government and its ability to regain a strong place in the federal system. Since the mid-1960s some forty states have substantially amended or adopted new constitutions. Problems persist, but state constitutions are, in general, much improved over those that existed forty years ago. They are increasingly documents for the ages rather than documents designed to fulfill the needs of the moment.

Module 4 (Chapters 4 and 5)Chapter 4: Citizen Participation and Elections


Participation Elections Direct Democracy Citizen Access to Government Volunteerism The Effects of Citizen Participation

LEARNING OBJECTIVESAfter reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:

1. How and why people participate in American representative democracy.2. The struggle by women and African Americans for the right to vote and current efforts to increase voting by all citizens.3. The variations in the primary election systems in the states and the reasons for the use of runoffelections in some states.4. The pattern of recent outcomes in the gubernatorial and legislative elections in the fifty states.5. The use of initiative, referendum, and recall at the state and local level.6. The various devices employed by state and local government to increase citizen participation.


Democracy assumes citizen participation, but evidence of low voter turnouts suggests that manycitizens are not much interested in elections. The traditional nonvoters—low income and lesseducated—forego any chance that vote-seeking candidates might pay attention to their needs. In aparticipatory democracy, voting is the most common form of exercising civic responsibility, but there are other methods of participating. William E. Lyons and David Lowery have categorized the potential responses (see Figure 4.1 in the text).

Voting is an example of passive, constructive, and “loyal” behavior; contacting officials is an example of an active, constructive use of “voice” in participating; leaving the community is a type of active, destructive participation termed “exit”; and simply ignoring chances to participate is a passive, destructive behavior categorized as “neglect.”

Nonparticipation in elections can be explained by socioeconomic status. Individuals with lower levels of income and education participate less than wealthier, more educated individuals do. Other explanations include age, gender, and race. Nonparticipation in elections also can partly be explained by age. In recent elections those between eighteen and twenty-nine years of age made up only 6 percent of the voters and 38 percent of the nonvoters. Younger people participate less than middle-aged individuals; women have participated less than men; and, blacks have participated less than whites.

However, only age seems to continue to affect participation. Women and minorities now participate significantly more than in the past. Institutional features, such as the complexity of registering to vote, also explain nonvoting. The right to vote in this country originally went only to white, propertied males.

Those requirements were eventually dropped, but women, blacks, and Native Americans had a longer struggle. Women were enfranchised in all states in 1920 as a result of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 had given the vote to blacks, but they were denied those rights in many states until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Twenty-Fourth Amendment (1964), and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Today nine southern states and parts of seven others must still submit changes in election laws or procedures to the U.S. Department of Justice for which required proof of “intent” to discourage minority voting.

Voting registration and voter turnout increased in the 1990s, stimulated in large part by the media. Generally, voting turnout is higher in presidential election years, stimulated by attractive candidates running a close race and encouraged by distinctive ideological stances in competitive elections. There are noteworthy differences among states in registration procedures and voter turnout. States with moralistic political cultures have higher voter turnout than traditionalistic ones. States with competitive political parties have higher turnouts, as do those with easier voter registration procedures.

In the 2000 elections, voter turnout was the highest in Minnesota (68.8 percent) and lowest in Hawaii (40.1 percent). Typically, voter turnout is lowest in southern states and in states that have many poor citizens.

California has the highest number of welfare recipients in the nation and despite its reputation forinitiatives and citizen participation tends to consistently rank low in voter turnout. To encourage voting many states have adopted a system whereby

citizens can register by mail. The National Voter Registration Act was passed in 1993. It allows citizens to register to vote when theyregister an automobile or get driver’s licenses. Some states are moving the deadline for registration closer to the date of the election, and four states allow citizens to register on Election Day.

Only NorthDakota requires no voter registration. Absentee balloting is easier than it used to be, and seven states allow early balloting. Ironically, recent research has shown that voters and nonvoters do not hold significantly different policy preferences. Thus, high voter turnout might not affect outcomes.

When government doesn’t respond to messages from the electorate, citizens are increasingly using ballot propositions to make their own laws. Initiatives are proposed laws or constitutional amendments that are placed on the ballot by citizen petition. The mechanism for legislation by popular vote was a reform introduced in the Progressive Era (circa 1890 to 1920). The popular referendum and recall were also products of this era.

The popular referendum begins with a petition to put the question on the ballot to overturn a legislative action, whereas the general referendum puts a proposition on the ballot forcitizen approval before it takes effect. Today twenty-four states allow the initiative, with Mississippi the most recent addition. A few states use the indirect initiative, where the legislature may act first on the question and only after the legislature rejects it does the citizenry get a chance to vote.

The first step in the initiative process involves a petition, and the petition signature requirement varies from state to state. California has transformed signature gathering into a science, most recently using direct mail. The 1950s and 1960s saw little use of the initiative, but the 1970s saw the processre activated by environmentalists, consumers, and tax limitation organizations. The return of the initiative is seen by some as a return to populism or Progressivism.

The 1990s find even greater reliance on it for getting tougher on crime, setting term limits, and tightening campaign finance laws. But taxation and gambling questions fared less well in the initiative process in a number of states.

Although most state initiatives draw little national attention, some do. These include initiatives in Arizona and California to legalize the use of marijuana for medical use and California’s Proposition 209, where voters upended affirmative action.

Despite the popularity of initiatives, typically most initiatives are defeated.Troubling questions arise over the wisdom of direct democracy. Can simple yes-or-no ballot questions really reflect options or develop compromise? Legislatures are deliberative bodies, not instant problem solvers. Ballot questions are low-information elections. Well-financed business and religious

groups take advantage of this. Some initiative reformers think that the public should be informed about the financial sponsors of the propositions offered to voters.

At its extreme the initiative process can become electronic democracy. Several states haveexperimented with it, while the National Conference of State Legislatures is seeking ways to prevent usurpation of lawmakers’ prerogatives. Legislators are proceeding cautiously given the recent review. Currently federal government action follows if the “effects” of these state changes discourage popularity of initiatives. And even as the question of reining in use of the device is examined, in 1994 four states considered and then rejected putting the question of the use of initiatives to its citizens.

Recalls were once a little-used mechanism in state and local governments, and only fifteen states provide for recall of state officials. In six of those, judicial officers are exempt. Even in states without recall, many city and county charters provide for its use. Recall efforts usually involve a public perception of official misconduct. The number of recalls grew during the 1980s and perhaps the most notable was the 1988 effort to recall Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, who was impeached instead.

The recall of California Governor Gray Davis in 2003 brought national attention to the process ofrecall. Davis became only the second governor in the history of the nation to be recalled from office. (The only other governor to be successfully recalled was North Dakota’s Lynn J. Frazier in 1921).

The rationale for the recall is simple—public officials should be subject to continuous voter control. One survey found two-thirds of those questioned wanted that power with respect to Congress. The public, rather than participating less, may be seeking mechanisms that make it easier for them to participate.

Increasing the capacity of state and local governments depends on citizen participation. It may not be easy to foster or efficient to use, but in a democracy it is the ultimate test of legitimacy of that government.

The irony of the American political system is that state and local governments’ encouragement of citizen participation may not make them run more efficiently. It will cause some to question the wisdom of too much direct democracy. But there seems little question that non national governments must provide an array of options for citizen involvement, because in the long run it will enhance their capabilities, vigor, and innovativeness.

The presidential election of 2000 illustrated the importance of the role of the states in national elections. The Florida recount will be remembered for years—an election that will be recalled for illustrating the inadequacies of punch card voting machines, chads, and the involvement of the state and federal courts.

The election also shows the importance of political participation as one of the closest presidential elections in the nation’s history was decided by only a few votes.

Chapter 5: Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Campaigns


Political Parties Interest Groups Political Campaigns

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:1. An ideal way that political parties in the United States might be measured.2. The organization of typical state political parties and the patterns and consequences of party competition in the states.3. The nature of interest groups and their role in influencing state and local governments.4. The role of lobbyists in the state capitols.5. The origins of political action committees (PACs), the nature of their increasing role in the states, and the efforts made by states to limit their power.6. The changing nature of political campaigning, the high costs of funding those campaigns, and the nature of efforts to avoid the excesses that arise from efforts to raise campaign money.7. The problems for the states and local government portended by the changes in political parties, interest groups, and political campaigns.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

American political parties are evolving, and a debate continues over whether our political parties are declining or becoming invigorated. A “responsible party model” describes the ideal, but American parties fall somewhat short of that mark.

Political parties are loosely organized coalitions of likeminded individuals that in the states rely most heavily on county-level organizations. Although many people identify with the party of their parents, they hold that identification increasingly lightly and show a penchant for ticket splitting.

Each state party has a charter or by-laws to govern its operation and, typically, is headed by a state committee. State party organizations vary greatly in organizational vitality and resources. Republican organizations generally outstrip Democratic ones on the size of their salaried staff and on financial resources.

County party committee members are chosen at the precinct level and are volunteers. Theyare less professional than the state organization and few operate year-round offices. The local party organizations range from fragmented, part-time activities to cohesive, experienced, and professional organizations able to offer candidates a range of services.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties contain elements from across the ideological spectrum, although the distribution of conservatives and liberals in each party is distinct. The Republican ideological distribution is one of increasing conservatism, whereas the Democrats display moderate party leaders buffering two equally divergent groups holding different ideologies and opposing views on campaign issues.

However, evangelical Christian activists, who want an even more conservativeRepublican Party, have challenged local Republican Parties. By 1994 the Christian right controlled many local Republican Party conventions, had captured many local races, and dominated the Republican governing organization in eighteen states and were very influential in thirteen others.

General elections in the United States are usually two-party contests and have been for the past 150 years. Explanations for institutionalization of a two-party system now focus on the structure of the electoral system. Parties compete in elections where there is only one winner and no reward for second or third.

States vary in their level of political competition. Most fall into the “substantial two-party competition” category. The days when one party virtually ran state government are largely gone. For many states two-party competition has taken a new tack in favor of the Republicans.

Beyond electoral competition, which party controls the major policymaking institutions is important. Divided government is not uncommon, and until the late 1980s Republican influence in state institutions was declining or, as in the South, all but nonexistent.

By the 1990s, Democratic fortunes had declined even in the South. Thus, two-party competition is spreading at a time when states are becoming a battleground for resolution of tough issues; competition should bring a wider search for solutions and greater innovation in the states. Political parties are still viable in the American political system.

Interest groups have become powerful players in our system. Some individuals join interest groups to communicate their preferences to government, whereas others are attracted to join by the benefits the group makes available to members. Interest groups come in all shapes and sizes, and many rely on lobbyists in the state capitol to influence public policy. Interests represented in the capitol lobby are as varied as in the states.

A ranking of the 20 most influential lobbies in the 50 states shows schoolteachers’ associations, general business organizations, and utility companies and their associations at the top of the list. Many state-level interest groups are ideological and seek political activity oriented toward some higher good: clean air, fairer tax systems, consumer protection, and so on.

A lobbyist is often defined in the states as anyone receiving compensation to influence legislative action. Some states require lobbyists to register. For some, the requirement exists even for unpaid representatives of various interests. The number of lobbyists varies greatly from state to state, and most states require lobbyists to file reports on expenditures and assess stiff penalties for violations.

Scandals in a number of states have led to prohibitions against giving gifts to legislators and prohibitions against public officials taking them. Interests affected by state government cannot afford to be without representation. To be effective, lobbyists must have access and so they cultivate relationships with lawmakers.

For their part, lawmakers need information on how legislation might affect different interests and the ability of a lobbyist in providing this information is of increasing importance as the states take on new tasks. Some interest groups, to show support for some action, rely on “grassroots lobbying” where orchestrated public demonstrations or evidence of support in the form of mail, faxes, and telephone calls is used.

PACs are narrowly focused subsets of interest groups and are making extensive inroads into state politics. PACs collect funds and distribute them to candidates. They were created when corporations and labor unions were barred from making contributions directly to the candidate. They are often seen as a threat to political parties as recruiters of candidates and financiers of campaigns, and many states have reacted by increasing regulations. In short, PACs are the campaign financing arms of corporations, labor unions, trade associations, and other interest groups.

State and local political campaigns are no longer old-fashioned, unsophisticated operations. They are influenced by modern campaign technology and financing. The mass media, particularly television, ensure that campaign information is available to everyone, and capturing media attention is increasingly sophisticated.

But free media time is seldom sufficient; candidates must also rely on paid advertisements to get their message to the public. The image of the candidate and negative images of the opponent can be easily transmitted via the TV screen. Much of this is made possible by the development of a new occupational specialty—the political consultant, who provides expertise in polling, direct mail campaigning, fund raising, advertising, and campaign management.

Political parties, interest groups, and campaigns are part of the democratic system. Ideally, the system keeps government working in the public’s interest. Considerable change, now under way in the components of the system, makes it difficult to assess their eventual impact on state and local government, but the vitality of those governments depends on the outcome.

Module 5 (Chapter 6)Chapter 6: State Legislatures


The Essence of Legislatures Legislative Dynamics Legislative Behavior How a Bill Becomes Law (Or Not) Legislative Reform and Capacity Relationship with the Executive Branch Legislatures and Capacity

LEARNING OBJECTIVESAfter reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:1. The legislative functions of policymaking, representation, and oversight.2. The ideals and reality of legislative reform efforts in the recent past, how they have changed the legislative membership, and the genesis of present efforts to institute term limits.3. The history of drawing legislative districts and the effects of recent court decisions.4. The basic structure of state legislatures, their leadership, and their committee makeup.5. The motives for legislative behavior.6. How a bill becomes law in state legislatures.7. The nature of executive-legislative relations in the states.8. The concept of legislative oversight and the tools available to legislatures to control executive agencies.9. The current issues that the nation’s state legislatures are addressing.

CHAPTER SUMMARY AND KEY TERMSLegislatures engage in three main functions: policymaking, representation, and oversight of thebureaucracy. During the first half of the century, legislatures were unprepared to deal with modern problems. The pay was too low, the sessions were too short, and the legislatures were understaffed.

Two factors shook legislatures out of their doldrums: federal court-mandated reapportionment, and the activities of private reform groups who promoted modernization of these state institutions.

Legislative reformers called for a legislature that was functional, accountable, informed, independent, and representative. A late 1960s evaluation of all state legislatures by one reform group, the Citizens’ Conference on State Legislatures, triggered extensive self-evaluation by legislatures around the country.

Later studies confirmed the significance of previously used evaluative criteria. Use of those same criteria in the 1990s showed that the top-ranked legislatures, with few exceptions, still rated highly and that a number of poorly rated legislatures had implemented reforms and have now moved to the middle of the pack. But public policy outputs of the states are a result of many legislative characteristics, and a variety of other factors, such as socioeconomic conditions and executive branch strength, shapes outcomes.

Today there are more full-time legislators, who bring expertise, and fewer part-time citizen legislators, who are probably more in touch with their communities. It is unclear whether increased professionalism resulting from the reform represents a victory. Concerns over the creation of a legislative leviathan have given rise to a phenomenon already affecting twenty-one states—namely, term limitation.

This device ends domination of the legislature by powerful veterans. With term limits, the distribution of power within the legislature will fluctuate more frequently, and could shift power away from the legislature and strengthen the governors.

Forty-nine states have bicameral legislatures, but Nebraska’s has been unicameral since 1934. The size of each house varies greatly, but the average senate has forty members and the typical lower house has one hundred. The political composition of state legislatures changes with each election. There are 7,382 legislators in the states. As of 2003, Democrats and Republicans were tied at about 50 percent each.

Men significantly outnumber women (78 percent versus 22 percent). African Americans hold 8 percent of all seats, Latinos 3 percent, and Asian Americans hold 1 percent of all seats. Native Americans hold one and a half percent of the seats in state legislatures.

Malapportionment went unchecked until the 1960s, but Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964) started a reapportionment fever in the 1960s and 1970s; it and the Voting Rights Act probably contributed to improving representation in the legislatures. State legislatures are reapportioned after the decennial United States census. Despite the “one person, one vote” court guidelines, gerrymandering still takes place after the census, and some states continue to use multimember districts that tend to work against the election of both partisan andracial minorities.

Meanwhile, legislative compensation has increased handsomely in the last three decades.Legislatures have their own way of doing things—their own formal and informal rules. The importance of seniority varies among the states, but it is crucial to build trust and avoid making enemies.

Consensus-building skills, too, are needed to progress into leadership positions. These rules make the legislative process flow smoothly; those who violate them, however, are subject to social and political sanctions. To survive, legislators must also learn how to take cues, as they will be subjected to heavy cross-pressures.

Some legislators are very sensitive to their district’s wishes and act as “delegates” by trying to carry out the will of the public. Other more experienced legislators often function as “trustees” and depend on their own best judgment. Still others may act as “politicos,” adjusting as issues and cues change, particularly as an election nears.

The governor and the legislature often collide in their policymaking roles, a circumstance that helps generate a consensus and, sometimes, a better solution. Where such conflict does exist, it is often greater in divided government states. In states where the same party controls both branches governors are quick to exploit their media advantage over the legislature. They have a powerful weapon in the veto. Yet governors with legislative experience often are able to avoid unnecessary conflicts with the legislature. And the legislature, for its part, can muster the votes to override the veto, cut the budget of the governor’s policy favorites, or in some states limit the power of the governor to transfer funds among executive branch agencies.

Legislatures do not leave control of the executive branch exclusively to the governors. They are involved in the oversight of the bureaucracy, too. They oversee policy and program evaluations, review rules and regulations, enact and monitor sunset legislation, and review and control federal funds received by the state. Legislators select auditors who evaluate performance of the agencies and seek to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. All legislatures play a role in reviewing administrative rules and regulations but vary greatly in their approach.

Some states employing a legislative veto have been found by the courts to violate the constitutional separation of powers. Those who have relied on this approach may have to return to the traditional use of the budgetary process to coerce agencies into taking advice on rules and regulations.

Half of the state legislatures have established sunset laws that set automatic expiration dates for agencies unless the legislature acts to extend the agency’s life. The process causes agencies to hew close to legislative intent. Additionally, legislatures now play a greater role in control of the reduced flow of federal funds by making it a part of the formal appropriations process. Finally, the legislature can fall back on a legislative investigation to discipline the executiveagencies.

In all, these forms of legislative oversight are seen from a governor’s perspective as meddling and undermining the separation of powers. Reform and modernization have increased legislatures’ capacity to carry out their three functions. In the process, legislators are more likely to consider themselves as full-time legislators and raise public concerns that have fostered term limits to prevent “congressionalization.”

Invigorated legislatures have expanded their dealings with the executive branch, and interinstitutional tensions have heated up.

Week 6 – Midterm

Module 6 (Chapters 7 and 8)

Chapter 7: Governors

This chapter covers the following: The Roles of the Governor: Duties and Responsibilities Formal Powers of the Governor Informal Powers Removal from Office Other Executive Branch Officials The Capability of U.S. Governors

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:1. The newly created states’ reluctance to grant power to governors, the further weakening ofexecutive power under Jacksonian democracy, and twentieth-century efforts to empower thegovernor.2. The increasing quality and level of experience of recent governors and the demands placed onthem by their new role in reinvigorated states.3. The reasons for and consequences of steadily rising costs of campaigns and the importance ofincumbency and party strength in capturing the state house.4. The various roles of governors in state government.5. The formal powers available to governors and how they vary from state to state.6. The informal powers available to governors and the various ways governors may enhance thosepowers.7. The methods for removing governors from office.8. The roles of other key elected state executive branch officials.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Today’s governors compare easily in responsibility and pressure with typical corporate CEOs. Yet they are paid less, subject to constant questioning by the media, subject to constant public criticism, and frequently the focus of media diatribes. Such public berating of governors is not new to politics, but is less warranted than in the past.

The excesses of the British colonial governors led to a distrust of executive power and to the creation of new state governments with weak executive authority. Gubernatorial authority increased slowly and was set back by Jacksonian democracy’s push for popular election of other state executive officials.

In the early 1900s, however, Progressive reformers, in an effort to improve the performance of state government, focused efforts on governors’ lack of power. Beginning around 1965, further efforts enhanced the capacity of governors to apply state resources to meet their increased duties and responsibilities.

Today’s governors are a far cry from the figureheads of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the backslapping, cigar-smoking, wheeler-dealers of the first half of the present century. Governors are younger, better educated, and better prepared by virtue of state government service at other levels.

White, Anglo-Saxon males still predominate, but among governors in recent years have been Hispanics, women, and an African American. During the 2002 elections, more women were running for governor than during any single election in the past. Factors such as the general attractiveness of the office, the withering away of party support, and the new technology of campaigning have raised the amount of money needed to win gubernatorial races.

Election costs are higher where the race is close, an effort is under way to unseat an incumbent, a shift in party control hangs in the balance, and a large, populous state is involved. There are signs that campaign cost-control efforts are succeeding, and the strongest influence on election outcomes remains the strength of a gubernatorial candidate’s party in the state’s electorate.

Nonetheless, being a high profile candidate with skills for raising money or being independently wealthy doesn’t hurt. Incumbency is also a particularly important aspect of the candidate’s profile, unless the incumbent is hampered by a poorly supported policy change, such as an unpopular tax increase.Since 1970, about 75 percent of the incumbent gubernatorial candidates have won their elections.

Governors must function in a number of different roles, among which is policymaker, chief legislator, chief administrator, ceremonial leader,

intergovernmental coordinator, economic development promoter, and party leader. Some governors in their policymaking role assume national policymaking prominence and some suffer the consequences of unforeseeable events that have a disastrous effect on their reputations.

The chief legislator role is most time consuming and for many the most difficult as partisanship and personality clashes heat up the state house. Despite these difficulties, most governorsin recent years have managed to dominate their state’s agenda.

The formal powers specified in the state constitution vary greatly from state to state: some provide for “strong” governors, some for “weak” ones. Powers not expressly provided by law are informal powers. The principal formal powers of the governors are the length of tenure of the office, the power of appointment of state officials, the power to veto legislation, the responsibility for preparing the state’s budget, the authority to reorganize the executive branch, and the right to use professional staff in the governor’s office.

Reorganization power has been particularly important in recent years, as many stateshave sought, by means of a cabinet structure, to reduce waste and inefficiency. In any event, the most successful governors are those who employ their informal powers to maximize formal ones. This synergism provides even greater effects and produces a particularly influential governor.

Some “weak” governors without many formal powers are very successful in meeting their goals. The informal powers include such tools as persuasion and leadership traits. Informal power is provided by popular support, prestige of the office, special sessions, pork barrel and patronage, public relations and media skills, negotiating and bargaining skills, and personal attributes such as youth, ambition, experience, and energy.

A number of factors make a successful governor, but studies suggest that age is the only statistically significant predictor of successful gubernatorial performance. Younger governorshave been more successful than older ones. There is, however, general agreement that leadership skills are important, though leadership traits are difficult to define.

A successful governor often wages a “never-ending campaign” to win the loyalty and support of his cabinet, state employees, and the legislature. Governors also know that they must focus their energies and powers of persuasion on a few key areas.

For the past thirty years the states have reformed their executive branches to enhance the role of the governor. That effort, coupled with the increased abilities of the candidates for the office, has led to greater vigor than ever before in American governorships. The state governorships have been

transformed, and today’s governors are increasingly capable of helping solve the nation’s most serious policy problems.

Chapter 8: Public Administration: Budgeting and Service Delivery


Public Employees in State and Local Governments: Who They Are, What They Do

Budgeting in State and Local Government Human Resource Policy in State and Local Government: From Patronage to Merit The Politics of Bureaucracy Reinventing Government The Quality of Public Administration

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:

1. Why government bureaucracy has often been criticized and used as a scapegoat, although it hasimproved the quality and capacity of state and local governments.2. The nature of the operating and capital budgetary processes, the traditional actors in budgeting,the five steps in the budget cycle, and the incremental nature of the budget process.3. The origins of the federal merit system and its influence on state and local government personnel systems.4. The challenge state and local governments face to maintain a personnel merit system at the same time they meet the challenges posed by affirmative action guidelines, cope with sexual harassment infractions, and react to efforts of government employees to unionize and seek collective bargaining rights.5. How elected political officials and career bureaucrats deal with the difficult relationship between administration and politics at the same time the civil servants are granted bureaucratic discretion, and interact with clientele groups.6. How state and local government bureaucracies are improving as a result of efforts to “reinventgovernment,” add to the quality of agency efforts by encouraging competition via privatization,and adopt new technologies (including the Internet and e-government) to enhance performanceand help agencies be more responsive to citizens’ needs.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

State and local bureaucracies should not be scapegoats for all of the social, economic, and political maladies that befall us. The bureaucracy, the least understood of all political institutions, involves one out of six working Americans. In all there are more than 18.3 million state and local government employees. That number has grown steadily since 1929, even while federal employment has remained relatively stable since the end of World War II.

State and local government employees perform diverse tasks with a motivation and competence rivaling those of private-sector employees. Budget documents provide the hard dollars-and-cents answer to the question of who gets what, when, where, and how. The budget process is a zero-sum game:

For every winner there is a loser, because public resources are limited. Governmental budgeting is best understood as a cycle with five stages: preparation, formulation, adoption, execution, and audit. Forty-eight state legislatures are bound by constitutions or statutes to balance revenues and expenditures, and the requirements usually apply to local governments as well. With declining or stable revenues and rising demands, budget makers are left with an array of choices—all unpopular.

Typically budget making is not a rational process. Decision makers fall back on an incrementalapproach that depends on some decision rules: The policy commitments of ongoing programs areaccepted as a given, and increases or decreases are a small percentage adjustment from the base.Consequently, the future becomes an extension of the past. Historically, fiscal accountability has been the main purpose of budgeting, incrementalism the dominant process, and the line item budget the standard document.

Performance budgeting is one of several alternatives to the incremental approachthat is built into line item budgeting. It stresses management and planning in order to focus on results. Budgeting processes are used to manage annual operating expenses. Major, long-term expenditures, on the other hand, are managed by capital budgets and funded by selling general obligation or revenue bonds.

Federal actions have a pronounced effect on state and local personnel practices. Federal hiring practices that stemmed from use of the patronage system, loss of urban political power to new immigrants, and a backlash to the inept administration of President Ulysses S. Grant led to passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883. It established an objective, merit-based selection system for national job openings. “Neutral competence” became the primary criterion for a national government job, and by 1949 twenty-three states and a number of local governments had adopted their own merit-based systems. Now all states are required by national statutes to set up merit systems for agencies and departments partially funded by certain national grants-in-aid.

Thirty-four states have comprehensive merit systems that encompass virtually all of their state employees.

On balance, state and local government employment systems have improved over the last twenty-five years as the states have experimented with pay for performance and other incentive plans, new performance appraisal systems, senior executive systems, comprehensive training programs, and the decentralization of personnel functions. All of these innovations are intended to ensure greater responsiveness to the chief executive, protect the merit system from those who would seek to use it for patronage, and improve the capacity of public officials to manage their agencies.

Furthermore, the states have now taken the lead in addressing threats to the merit system principles. Although the non national governments seek a work force that is representative of the community, controversy surrounds the use of affirmative action and the guidelines provided by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which are perceived as conflicting with the merit principle. At the same time, much of the official activity aimed at protecting government employees from sexual harassment has been concentrated in the states.

In an ideal world, elected political officials make all decisions regarding policymaking and administrators carry out those policies. In the real world, bureaucrats are intimately involved from design of legislation to implementation. They are often granted considerable bureaucratic discretion based on their knowledge and expertise.

Legal systems exist for hearings and action on disputes over agency rules and regulations. Clientele, often organized as pressure groups, exert considerable influence over bureaucratic behavior and the resources available to them by aligning themselves with the agencyand legislative committees in what are called “iron triangles.” Politics and administration are sometimes incompatible as administrators attempt to base their actions on neutral, professional competence and not on the politics of favoritism.

The dilemma facing state and local administrators lies in being responsive to the general public interest even as they listen to their superiors, elected officials, clientele groups, and public interest groups and are mindful of the dictates of constitutions and statutes. The concept of bureaucratic responsiveness can be thought of as falling into three categories: objective responsibility, which may be measured in legal terms; subjective responsibility, which involves a sense of moral obligation; and professional responsibility, which depends on expertise and standards established by the given profession.

As the proportion of professionals in state and local government has risen, the importance of this source of influence on the bureaucracy has increased. A strong case can be made that professionalism encourages bureaucratic

responsiveness, but critics fear that professionals view the public interest in a very limited and self-serving way.

With growth in the number of state and local government employees, citizen dissatisfaction with government has reached new heights. Out of that dissatisfaction new strategies have been sought. One of them is a far-reaching approach called reinventing government, which calls for entrepreneurial results-oriented governments. Many people in government have enthusiastically accepted it, but the notion of transforming governments in this fashion has not been without its critics.

Additionally, egovernment, which allows citizens to access government via the Internet or telephone, has become standard government practice in the new century. In short, the idea of e-government is to make government more accessible and user-friendly.

Despite the chorus of criticisms of state and local government bureaucracies, much of it is misplaced. Quality has improved markedly as innovation and capacity building have transformed public administration and increased its ability to support the resurgence of the states and revitalization of local governments.

Module 7 (Chapter 9)

Chapter 9: The Judiciary


The Structure of State Court Systems How Judges Are Selected Judicial Decisionmaking New Judicial Federalism Administrative and Organizational Improvements Crime and Criminal Justice

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:1. How the state court systems are divided into three areas⎯civil, criminal, and administrative.2. The structure of state court systems.3. The nature of the structural reform of state courts in the 1960s and 1970s that led to unified court systems in many states.4. The methods by which judges are selected and the means for their removal.5. The nature of judicial decisionmaking and how civil and criminal cases are decided outside the

courtroom.6. The new wave of judicial activism within the state courts.7. The new directions and trends in state court reform.8. The linkage between the judicial branch and criminal justice.

CHAPTER SUMMARYThe work of state court systems involves three areas: civil, criminal, and administrative. As the court system developed it added new structures to existing ones, and the results were complex and confusing. The court reform movement of the 1960s and 1970s sought to reorganize state courts into more rational, efficient, and simplified structures. The reform effort has resulted in a unified court system that frees judges of many administrative duties that had traditionally burdened them and has done away with overlapping jurisdictions.

Today, limited jurisdiction courts, trial courts, and appellate courts make up the two levels of most state court systems. Courts in the lowest tier have original jurisdiction over specialized cases, such as juveniles, traffic, and small claims. Small claims courts are increasingly popular as a simple and inexpensive way of solving minor civil disputes. Major trial courts exercise general authority over civil and criminal cases, serve as an appeals court for cases from the lowest tier courts, and often are organized along county or district lines. Appellate courts review cases on appeal from the trial courts.

The state supreme court, or court of last resort, in all states and intermediate appellate courts in most states provide for decisions via a panel of judges. Selection of judges, a matter subject to great controversy, is carried out through five different selection systems in the states: legislative election, partisan popular election, nonpartisan popular election, merit plan selection, and gubernatorial appointment.

Dissatisfaction with the other methods and endorsement by the American Bar Association have popularized merit plan selection, particularly in the form of the Missouri Plan. But debate continues over which system is best. Ultimately all selection systems depend on politics; and some states have turned to public financing of judicial elections, where used, in aneffort to reduce their political nature.

The processes of impeachment, legislative address, or popular recall can be used to remove judges. But all three of these traditional methods are slow, cumbersome, and uncertain. More practical means have been adopted in recent years, such as mandatory retirement at a given age and the creation of courts of the judiciary and judicial discipline and removal commissions to deal with judicial behavioral problems. Hearings may result in warnings, recommendation of early retirement, or dismissal.

Misconduct among state court judges is uncommon but occurs in all states at one time or another, and judicial ethics often appear to be lacking. The legal formalities of the courtroom mask the fact that judicial decisions are often discretionary and subjective. Most civil and criminal cases (about 90 percent)

are resolved outside the courtroom in civil suit pretrial conferences and in criminal-case plea-bargaining.

Cases that go to a trial court may be conducted in a trial by jury or by a bench trial where a single judge decides the outcome. In some states a defendant has a choice; in others, state legal procedures prescribe the trial format. For murder cases a jury is always mandatory. In the appellate courts no plaintiffs, defendants, or witnesses are present. The appeal consists of a review of court records and arguments directed by the attorneys. A panel of at least three judges makes these decisions.

Judicial decision making in the various courts of the state is influenced by factors associated with the state’s legal system—institutional arrangement or court organization, locally acceptable legal precedent and procedure, caseload pressures, and the ease with which interested parties gain access to the legal process.

But judges do not think and act alike. The judge’s individuality influences decisions in thecourtroom, and studies of state court justices have found decisions are related to party identification, political ideology, prior careers, religion, ethnicity, age, and sex.

Judicial activism is an imprecise term that has been associated with both liberal and conservative judges whose decisions have generated changes in public policy. State courts have become more activist by expanding into new policy areas, often based on U.S. Supreme Court rulings and the states’ own constitutions rather than on the U.S. Constitution.

The state supreme courts, in this era of “new judicial federalism,” have issued hundreds of opinions since the 1970s that have taken minimum standards established by the U.S. Supreme Court and expanded them within their states. But not all states’ courts are inclined to play such an active role, and many remain caught in the doldrums. Moreover, there is danger that the new wave of court activism will carry the courts too far in policymaking.

The latest round of modernization of court systems has involved centralized court budgeting and managing court caseloads. About half of the states have assumed financial responsibility for operation of state and local courts. Such reform enhances financial management, helps maintain independence from the executive and legislative branches, and eliminates disparities between judicial districts. In dealing with heavy caseloads that exceed 100 million cases per year, creation of new courts or adding new judges only compounds the problem.

Promising new approaches include creation of alternatives to formal litigation, new court rules against violating standards that require cases be heard within a specified time, and application of new technology to improve the quality and quantity of court operations. Greater efforts are being made to attract honest and productive judges by ensuring that they are adequately

compensated, since historically their salaries have lagged well behind the amount earned by successful lawyers in private practice.

The judiciary is the critical institutional link to the policy of crime in the states. States have made many policy innovations to deal with crime and criminal justice, but much controversy remains over what to do with convicted criminals. The United States imprisons a higher proportion of its people than any nation except Russia and prison overcrowding is a policy dilemma faced by many states. At the beginning of 2004, 6.9 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole—more than 3 percent of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 32 adults. More than 2 million prisoners were held in federal, state, and local prisons in the United States.

State and federal prison authorities had under their jurisdiction nearly 1.5 million inmates in 2004—more than 1.4 million under state or local jurisdiction, and more than 173,000 under federal jurisdiction. The states have developed a variety of strategies to deal with crime, such as front-door strategies like alternative sentencing, and back-door strategies such as early release systems and electronic house detention. Some innovations have been less effective than anticipated. Private prisons, for example, appear to provide only a small savings (about 5 percent) over government owned prisons. Crime remains a significant issue despite the fact that crime rates have been falling for a number of years (the trend began during the 1990s). In fact, in 2003 crime rates had dropped to their lowest rate since 1966. Despite declining crime rates, the judiciaries of most states remain overburdened with caseloads.

As a result of the modernization efforts, courts are now more independent from political pressures and favoritism and more accountable for their actions, but increased state judicial activism also has accompanied modernization. Innovations in the courts and the criminal justice system continue to occur in the states.

Module 8 ( Chapter 10 and 11)

Chapter 10: State-Local Relations


The Distribution of Authority State-Local Organizations Metropolitics: A New Challenge for State Government States and Their Rural Communities The Interaction of States and Localities

LEARNING OBJECTIVESAfter reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:1. The nature of authority and differing degrees to which it is granted to local governments by state governments.

2. The purposes of state mandates, the complaints made about them by local governments, and the increasing adoption by some states of mandate-reimbursement requirements.3. The organizations created by state governments to expand state understanding of the needs oflocal governments.4. The side effects of urbanization on local governments and what they and state government aredoing while this is occurring.5. The alternative forms of specialized minigovernments and regional governments or coordinating bodies that have been created to deal with sprawl associated with growing metropolitan areas.6. The variety of growth patterns in rural areas and the role that states might play in helping thosewith declining growth patterns.7. The current trend in rethinking state-local government relations as states recognize that their own resurgence depends on strong local governments.

CHAPTER SUMMARYState legislatures are the trustees of the basic rules of local governance in America. The constitutions and laws of the states are the legal instruments of local governance. States have recently begun to treat local governments as partners, though the effort is by no means a well-coordinated one. General purpose governments typically have wider latitude than special-purpose governments. The more recent a state’s constitution, the more likely it is to empower local government; but only about one-half extend truly proprietary policymaking power to their cities, and even fewer accord counties similar powers.

The real distribution of authority can be seen in an important function like highway planning, where state and local officials do consult. A nationwide survey shows general satisfaction with this arrangement, but the state has the last word and in some functions, like growth management, the consultations generate considerably more friction.

State governments find their dealings with local governments confounded by the side effects of urbanization. Several waves of suburbanization have affected the urban area: the 1920s move to the suburbs facilitated by the automobile; a resurgence in the 1950s that saw retail stores follow the population exodus; and, most recently, the development of office space beyond the central city. Indeed, central cities in the 1980s were fundamentally altered as the urban landscapes have come to be composed of relatively self-contained and self-sufficient decentralized regional units.

These new “boom towns” have outpaced the central cities and are considered to be the “new frontier” of urbanized America. This has created a need for changes to outdated state policy toward metropolitan jurisdictions.

Rapid unplanned growth is producing sprawl and “shadow governments.” State governments appear to be doing more than they used to about the problems created by unplanned growth. New developments on the outer reaches of the central city are called “edge cities.” Their existence around Phoenix, Honolulu, and Seattle and state responses in each case are illustrations of state involvement with the problem.

A new form of local government, called “shadow governments,” emerged from edge cities found outside of large cities like Phoenix, Arizona. They may be private enterprise shadow governments, such as homeowner associations; public-private partnerships, such as development corporations; or subsidiaries of conventional governments with unusual powers, such as areawide planning commissions. More than 150,000 such arrangements exist. Although they generally operate within the confines of state law, the states have displayed a curious hands-off posture.

This is surprising, inasmuch as the shadow governments raise serious questions of power and equity. Their vaunted efficiency, however, makes them a power to be reckoned with and their number is increasing, not decreasing.

Continued urban expansion and shadow governments make up extended webs of independent jurisdictions. State governments seem not to have much idea about how these places would best be governed.

Regional government is one alternative to these specialized mini-governments. And closely related to regional government is the city-county consolidation currently found in thirty-three consolidated governments. These governments are seen as a way to address stubborn areawide problems and produce economies of scale in service delivery. Criticisms of these arrangements include their inaccessibility and the destruction of hard-won political gains of minorities.

Regardless of the reasons, the voting public has stubbornly resisted them, and state legislatures have been reluctant to follow the nineteenth century lead of unilaterally creating them.Strong local governments make for resurgent state governments. Local governments benefit from positive relations with the states. Nonetheless the two levels frequently clash, with dire consequences.

State-local relations are always in flux, and the trend over the past three decades has been toward increased state assistance and empowerment of local governments.

Chapter 11: Local Government: Structure and Leadership


Five Types of Local Governments Leadership in Local Government

Communities and Governance

LEARNING OBJECTIVESAfter reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:1. The nature of local governments and how they developed.2. The difference between general-purpose and special-purpose governments.3. The general role of counties, the possible variations based on their urban/rural nature, and thedifferent organizational structures of that level of government.4. How municipalities or cities are created and alternative structural types of city governments.5. The role of special-purpose districts, their advantages, and the basis for uneasiness about theirexistence.6. The nature of the school district as a special type of single-purpose local government, itsgovernance, and the concerns over unequal distributions of financial resources.7. The difference between strong and weak mayors and the requisites for success irrespective offormal power, and the mayoral types that occupy office.8. The success of women and minorities winning elections for the mayor's office.9. The changing nature of city councils and the increasing racial, ethnic, and gender diversity ofthose legislative bodies.10. Suggestions about judging how well communities are governed.

CHAPTER SUMMARYAmerican local governments sprouted in response to a combination of citizen demand, interest grouppressure, and state government acquiescence. As a consequence, no scientific system of localgovernment exists. General-purpose local governments perform a wide variety of governmentalfunctions, and counties, municipalities, and towns and townships all fall into this category. Specialpurposelocal governments generally focus on a specific purpose and one function. Best known of theseare the school districts. Regardless of name, it is state government that gives local governments of alltypes their legal life.Counties were created to function as appendages of the state, but modernization and population growthhave put pressures on counties to expand their service offerings beyond property tax assessment and

collection, law enforcement, elections, recordkeeping, and road maintenance. Increasingly they havebecome independent policymaking units of local government, and many handle health care, pollutioncontrol, mass transit, industrial development, social services, and consumer protection. Home ruleprovisions in at least thirty-seven states award the county with greater decisionmaking authority andflexibility. There are 3,043 counties in the United States. Two states, Connecticut and Rhode Island,have no functional county governments. Counties are called parishes in Louisiana and boroughs in Alaska..The typical county government has a board of commissioners or supervisors and a number of otherelected officials forming a plural executive structure. Criticisms of this form of government have led totwo alternatives—the county council-elected executive and the council-administrator forms. Threequartersof all counties are organized in the plural executive format, but the two alternatives are widelyused and experimentation continues. Meanwhile, county-state relations are strained as state-imposedmandates for new programs send county government costs spiraling.Like counties, cities are general-purpose governments, but their origins and the role they have playeddiffer. They begin as concentrations of people within a county who petition the state for a charter ofincorporation. When incorporation is successful, citizens vote on name and form of government.Typically cities have greater authority and discretion than counties, and they offer a wider variety ofservices. City or municipal governments operate with one of three structures: a mayor-council form, acity commission form, or a council-manager form. Experts disagree over which is best but generallyfind those forms without a strong executive officer less preferable than others. Experimentationcontinues as voters consider and often make changes in the basic structure of city government even asthey face pressing problems related to planning and land use, annexation, finances, and determininghow to provide fair representation.Towns, or townships, are also general-purpose units of government but are generally smaller than citiesand counties. They are often rural in nature and their services are limited, but where they are locatednear populous areas they generally offer an expanded set of services. Many observers feel that

townships have a dim future and that without federal general revenue sharing they will soon cease toexist, but townships have been remarkably resilient.The fourth type of local government—the single-purpose or special district—is supposed to do whatlocal governments cannot or will not do. There are some 33,000 special districts around the country,and their number is growing. They overlay existing general-purpose governments and differ in theirorganization—they are minuscule to mammoth. They continue to exist because of technical andpractical limits on the general-purpose local government, the special debt and tax advantages underwhich the special district operates, and the political power that they accrue. They accrue political powerbecause of restrictive annexation laws faced by cities and the limits on county government authority.Once created, the special-district interests fight encroachment by general-purpose governments.Supporters argue they are efficient in providing a service and are responsive to constituents whoseneeds were not met by general-purpose government. However, many scholars look at them with ajaundiced eye, because they feel that they operate without enough political accountability and that wellplacedgroups are their special beneficiaries. Some states are taking action to give general-purpose localgovernments more input into the creation of new special districts.School districts are a unique breed of single-purpose district. Prior to World War II there were 100,000school districts that were often rural and expensive to maintain. Despite local pride in these institutions,they have been consolidated. By 2002 the number of school districts had dropped below 14,000.Who runs local governments? When this question arises proponents of elite theory and pluralist theoryprovide different answers. Elite theory holds that a small group of parochial economic insidersdominate the community to enhance their business and professional interests. Conversely, pluralisttheory views the community decisionmaking process as one of bargaining, accommodation, andcompromise among multiple groups with decisions made by fragmented authority, but the legitimacy ofthis process hinges on the ability of the larger community to revoke the right of such limited groups tomake decisions. The latter theory is a more hopeful interpretation of community power.To understand the dynamics of power in a community one must look to the regime—the informal

arrangements that surround and complement the formal workings of government authority. Conceptslike “systemic power” and “strategic advantage” may explain why upper strata interests so often winthe day, but electoral accountability may sway elected officials to decide against these narrow interests.Chapter 11: Local Government: Structure and Leadership 51Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.In other instances, hyperpluralism—a situation in which competing groups are unable to formcoalitions—allows public policy to become incoherent and increasingly ineffective. The question ofwho is in charge has no clear answer.Mayors occupy the center of attention in city government. Occasionally city council members withaspirations to the mayor’s job try to fill that role. “Strong” mayors enjoy structural arrangements of theoffice that afford greater formal powers. Those without this leadership-inducing structure are referred toas “weak” mayors. In the weak-mayor structure, the mayor shares much of his power with the council.Most American cities display a preference for weak mayors, but reformers believe complex problemsare best resolved by a structure with a strong mayor. Opponents fear such individuals will build apolitical machine based on an exchange of benefits. But structure simply creates opportunities forleadership, and true leaders are those who can transform a structurally weak position into a strong oneby dint of strong leadership. The reform movement elevated city managers to a prominent leadershipposition in many cities. Originally, administration and politics were considered independent of eachother, but such separation has proven impossible—particularly for city managers, who are involved inthe initiation and formulation of policy. As with mayors, four types of city managers exist: communityleader, chief executive, innovator, and caretaker. When a particular managerial type is matched with theappropriate community style, there is an excellent likelihood that local government will functionoptimally.Local legislative bodies are much changed from the days when they were exclusive clubs. Then councilmembers considered themselves volunteers. Today city councils are less white, less male, and lesspassive. They are less likely to have been elected at large. Racial and ethnic minorities are makinginroads in elected city and county offices across the country, but the percentages remain relatively low.

The possibility exists that with more groups seeking representation minority groups will buildcoalitions. That appears not to be the case. Inter-minority group competition is on the rise. For example,recent data shows that an increase in Hispanic population had a negative effect on black representationon city councils. Without a shared political philosophy and selection from the same socioeconomicstratum, much more conflict is associated with council decisionmaking. Council members elected bydistrict report more factionalism and less unanimity than counterparts elected at large. Council memberconflict appears to be on the rise nationwide. Local governments seek the right mix of politics andprofessionalism as the players change, issues shift, structures adjust, and communities endure.Central cities, suburban town governments, and urban counties are increasingly joining efforts to forgeareawide solutions to contemporary problems. The movement is modest but growing in recognizing thecosts of providing duplicate services and the realization that interjurisdictional cooperative approachesmay be more effective than individual ones. These “intercommunity partnerships” involve localgovernments and area businesses, civic organizations, the academic community, and citizen leagues.How do we know when a community is well governed? Although there are no universally acceptedcriteria by which to assess the quality of governance, the National Municipal League bestows its “All-American City” designation on cities displaying civic energy. Other attempts to provide criteria bywhich to judge communities have included such measures as tranquility among officials, continuity inoffice, use of analytical budgeting and planning, participative management, innovativeness, publicprivatepartnerships, and citizen input. Researchers from the Government Performance Project electedthirty-five cities and conducted an extensive analysis on their management practices and performance.Of these cities only Phoenix, Arizona, received a grade of “A.” Such measures, however imperfect,offer at least some guidance for continued thinking about community governance as general-purposeand single-purpose governments tinker with their structure and experiment with new jurisdictionalpartnerships in an effort to find a balance between efficiency and responsiveness.

Module 9 Chapter 12: Tax and Spending


The Principles of Finance Revenues The Political Economy of Taxation Borrowing and Debt Where All the Money Goes: State and Local Spending State and Local Finance in the 2000s

LEARNING OBJECTIVESAfter reading this chapter, students should be able to understand:1. The interdependence and diversity of the various levels of American government in matters offinance.2. The criteria for evaluating the various means of levying taxes.3. The available types of state and local taxes and their advantages and disadvantages.4. The effects that constitutional and statutorial limits in the states have on indebtedness.5. The importance of revenue projections, the uses of rainy day funds, and the part politics and otherstate and local financial management practices may play in fiscal planning.6. The means available to nonnational governments for managing long-term debt obligations.7. The changing financial relationship between local government and the national and stategovernments in the new century.CHAPTER SUMMARYThe fiscal landscape in state and local jurisdictions has profoundly changed in the last few decades.More change is certain as nonnational governments strive to meet taxpayer service demandseconomically and creatively.Historically, state and local governments depended on property taxes for their revenues. But todaycitizens’ demands for an increased scope and level of services has led to tax systems that are morediversified and equitable. The basic principles that describe evolving nonnational financial systems areinterdependence and diversity. Most of the money raised by state and local governments is own-sourcerevenue, but they also benefit from intergovernmental transfers. Federal grants, though declining fromprevious years, still account for about 24 percent of all state and local government revenues. As federal

aid has declined, states have become the “senior financial partner” as they increased their monetarysupport of localities, particularly for schools and social welfare.The second basic principle of nonnational finance systems is diversity, and although each level ofgovernment still depends more heavily on one type of revenue device than on others, state and localfiscal systems are increasingly diversified. States vary in their “tax capacity,” but that does not mean allstates will maximize their tax-collecting possibilities. Between 1950 and 1985 spending by state andlocal governments increased by 2,000 percent. Where that money is spent varies greatly from onejurisdiction to the next, but in recent years large expenditures are being made for corrections andMedicaid program costs.State and local finance systems differ, but property tax is increasingly unpopular and diversification is acommon response. Political scientists and economists agree that the most important criteria forevaluating these different tax options are equity, yield, elasticity, ease of administration, and politicalaccountability and acceptability. Today the major state and local taxes are the property, sales, andincome tax. User fees and “sin taxes” continue to be popular in the states and two old devices—Chapter 12: Taxing and Spending 57Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.severance taxes and gambling in the form of lotteries, casinos, or pari-mutuel betting on horses ordogs—have regained favor in the last two decades.National and regional economic downturns create conditions for severe fiscal stress. Older industrialcities are particularly vulnerable. Concentrations of poor and minorities in deteriorating housing anddeclining infrastructure pose problems that may not be solved without federal assistance. Meanwhile,citizens ask for more services and government officials in the stressed areas face the realization thatjobs, firms, and investments are being “stolen” by low-tax states. Mismanagement of resources andpressures from city workers and their unions drive up costs as intergovernmental revenues decline. Thecircumstances are a well-tested recipe for fiscal stress, bond defaults, and even bankruptcy. To survive,elected officials have had to decide which popular programs to keep and which taxes to raise. Theyhave been aided by an economic upturn since the early 1990s, which has produced increasing revenues

and some relief as state and local governments have been forced to be more creative and innovative.Taxation and expenditure limitations reduce the discretion of nonnational governments. High-tax statesare in danger of losing jobs, firms, and investments to low-tax states. Earmarking taxes for popularprograms often ties the hands of officials to shift monies to other areas. Approximately 25 percent ofstate tax revenues are earmarked. That percentage has decreased in the last thirty-five years, but thenumber of dedicated purposes has grown markedly. The federal government has the most discretion.States have less since they must meet federal mandates, and local governments must comply with anincreasing number of state mandates while their legal authority to raise revenues is severely curtailed inmost states. Because nonnational governments must balance their operating budgets, reliable revenueestimates are doubly important. Only recently have the states and larger cities begun to employ morereliable econometric models to derive estimates of future revenues. The quality of the data and thevalidity of the economic assumptions may still color outcomes. Even so, politicians may intrude tooverestimate revenues as they seek support for a popular new program, or underestimate revenues sothat year-end budget surpluses can be chalked up to “good management.” Contingency funds becomenecessary for states and localities faced with statutory or constitutional requirements for a balancedbudget. These “rainy day funds” are common at the state level and are more frequently used in localgovernment. State and local governments are becoming better, however, at managing cash andinvestments. Investment management is found in such programs as the bond bank, whereby the stategovernment gathers bonds from the local jurisdictions and issues the total debt in a single state bond.This lowers borrowing costs and saves expenses in marketing the bonds to investors. The mostimportant state and local investments are usually in the area of employee pension funds, which infinancially suffering governments are tempting sources of funds.Increasingly, local governments are fixing their sights on the states rather than the national governmentas a source of financial aid. The ability of local governments to raise money has traditionally beenhighly restricted by state law, and through the 1960s and 1970s localities usually “bypassed” the states

and turned to the national government for financial assistance. But states’ insensitivity to the plight oflocal government began changing in the 1970s, largely because reapportionment gave urban interestsincreased standing in state legislatures. With the tax revolts of the late 1970s like Proposition 13 inCalifornia, and the national-level retrenchment that followed, the states have become the single largestsource of local revenues. But like the federal grants-in-aid programs, state help comes with stringsattached. Some states allow more local freedom than others, but in states where local jurisdictions arehampered in their ability to raise and spend revenues, the trend has been toward even greatercentralization.In the past, the federal and state governments could be counted upon to come to the rescue of localgovernments in fiscal trouble. Today, the keys to surviving a financial crisis are intergovernmentalcooperation, burden sharing, capacity building, and citizen comprehension of the basic tax-servicerelationship. The call for reinventing and reinvigorating state and local governments is being heard.State and local governments remain laboratories of democracy, and hard times call for hard actions. All things considered, nonnational governments have been more fiscally responsible than the federalgovernment has been in modern times.

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