State Legislative Process Episode 2

>>Hello. My name is Bill Sederburg. I am President of Utah Valley State College. But what you may not know is that for twelve years I served as a State Senator for the state of Michigan. In Michigan there are full State Senates, so we were involved in a variety of important state policy issues. One thing I learned is that the public really had very little understanding of the importance of the legislature or how the legislature went about their business making important decisions. Thus, when Professor Rick Griffin of our Political Science department suggested to me that maybe we should team up and have a class on UEN about the State Legislative Process, I jumped at that opportunity. It is very hard for the average citizen really to grasp how important the state legislature is to them. Whether they are driving down Interstate 15 and wonder about the speed limit, well, that is set by the State Legislature through the legislative process. The quality of water that you drink is established by the State through a legislative process. Whether or not the class size for elementary education gets reduced because of extra funding from the State is set by the legislature after being suggested by the governor and other legislative and political leaders within the state. So the legislative process affects almost everything that we do here in the State of Utah. And thus this class, the State Legislative Process, is quite important. Last week the class covered the powers of the governor, particularly his power to initiate ideas for the legislature to consider. During the past week we have heard the governor give his state of the state address in a National Guard building in Salt Lake County. We have also had the governor’s budget come out in which he has proposed different ideas for the legislature to consider. These are powers of initiation. Well, this week we are going to be talking about the structure of the State Legislature and the powers of the State Legislature here in Utah. In Utah, the State Legislature consists of two houses. We call it bicameral legislature, meaning we have a House of Representatives and a State Senate. The State Senate consists of twenty-nine members. The House of Representatives consists of seventy-five members, according to the state constitution. The powers of the leadership of the Legislature are immense and very, very significant. I have a prop here, a gavel, which is probably the most significant symbol of the power of the legislative leadership. Many a time, I know in Michigan, when the leadership of the Senate or the House was affected negatively by what was being debated, they would merely rap their gavel, and adjourn the state session for that day, and oftentimes cut off the debate and ended the conversation. Those are just a few of the powers of the leadership of the Legislature. So those are a few of the things that we are going to be talking about today. At this time, I am going to turn it over to Professor Rick Griffin, who will share with you the outline for tonight’s program, and the learning objectives that we hope to accomplish as we look at the structure and power of the Utah State Legislature.
>>Welcome to State Legislative Process. I am Rick Griffin, and today’s episode is Structure, Powers and Leadership. The First lesson point deals with legislative structure. Throughout our nation, State Legislatures have a bicameral, or in other words, a two House Legislature. The only exception is Nebraska, which has a unicameral, or one house, Legislature. The lower of the two Houses in today’s State Legislative system is the House of Representatives, or Assembly. And the upper is the Senate, similar to the US Congress. This might give the impression that all State Legislatures were originally modeled after the US Congress, or perhaps the even older British House Commons and House of Lords in Parliament. Although it is true that the American colonists were influenced by British legislative history, and that Parliament has two House, there are clear differences between the British and American legislative models. As for Congress influencing the states, it depends on which states and which period of time one is talking about. The fact is that it is actually the early State Legislatures that influenced in meaningful ways both the structure of today’s legislatures and the formation of the US Congress. To learn more about the history of early State Legislatures, we spoke with University of Iowa University faculty and legislative historian Dr. Pev Squire.
>>We are delighted to day to have Dr. Peverill Squire join us. Dr. Squires is faculty member of the University of Iowa. He is a national expert on State Legislature procedure. He is currently co-editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly, the nation’s leading academic journal on State Legislatures. He has authored six books on the State Legislative process. His best known and most widely read book is called Dynamics of Democracy. So Dr. Squire, thank you for joining us today. We are just delighted to have you here.
>>My pleasure.
>>And we are still in mourning that the University of Iowa didn’t do so well, but I know they will do better in the future.
>>We will bounce back.
>>We’ll bounce back. Well, one f the common misconceptions of State Legislatures that the history is driven from England and the Senate State Legislatures came from the House of Lords, and the House of Representatives came from the House of Commons. But in your writings and research, that really isn’t the history of State Legislatures. Fill us in on that background.
>>Well, it is a little bit more complicated that mimicking what was going on in the mother country. The Colonial Assemblies, which are the predecessor of the State Legislatures and Congress of today, have a fairly interesting history. They were begun in response to local conditions to meet local needs in the various early local colonies. The Assembly itself was really a representative body only in that it changed from a group that had been composed of all the free men in the colony. And so the Assembly developed sort of on the lines that we would expect in terms of being a local institution that gave local people a chance to govern themselves and have some say.
>>When you say a local, in those days Great Britain was controlling everything from over seas.
>>Right.
>>And so it was an opportunity to have representation of the locals compared to English.
>>That’s right. There was some reason to suspect that colonies would be more successful if the people living in them had some say in the decisions that affected them. And of course the parent body back in England was three months away if everything went well. So there were good reasons to have local control. And these colonial Assemblies, which become the lower Houses of State Legislatures in later history, are bodies developed to give local people some say in their own governance. 
>>What was our very first legislative body in the United States?
>>The first one was in Virginia, and was established in 1619, very early on in the Virginia colony’s history. The colony was failing, and there was a desire on the part of those who were invested in the colony to make it successful. And the idea was for some representative body that would give people in the colony some sense that they had some control over their destiny. And so they established it.
>>Did they use a bicameral legislature, or was it just the one House?
>>Initially, the early colonies had an Assembly that was part of a larger, very amorphous governing group that included the governor, who was an appointed representative from England, and a group of counselors who were advisors to the governor. And they met together usually twice a year to make collective decisions, and eventually there were differences the representatives of the colonists and the representatives of the governing body back in England. And so you begin to see this separation between the Assembly and the counselors, and that is where the two separate chambers developed, the Assembly representing the local people in the colonies, and the council representing the interest of the corporation, or the crown back in England.
>>I was struck by the idea that they threw everybody into the pot. You had the governor, and the counselors, and the elected freemen—no separation of powers under that scheme.
>>None whatsoever. And it wasn’t clear at that point who had which powers in terms of decision making. Certainly the governor was ultimately responsible, but over time the Assemblies tended to wrest power away from the governor, and during the colonial period it was really the representative Assemblies that drove what became the independence movement.
>>How did that bicameral evolution occur where we move to State Senates and State House of Representatives?
>>Well, it is interesting. Everybody would assume that it was simply modeled on the British Parliament, where you had the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
>>I know when I served in the State Senate, we were always referred to as the House of Lords, and representatives still like to do that with any senator.
>>Sure. Well you know, there is some element of aristocracy still in the upper house. But really, the development of the bicameral systems came because the members of the Assembly and the counselors had very different perspectives. They in essence were representing different groups of people and different interests. And there were clashes between those two bodies that led them to want to sit separately, literally sit separately from one another. And the particular case that drove the first colonial Assembly to separate, which was in Massachusetts, was a case involving a pig that had wandered off its owner’s property. And under the law at the time was liable to be killed when it went into somebody else’s property. And this actually had some class distinctions, and the Assembly sided with the widow who had lost the pig, and the counselors sided with the wealthy sea captain who had killed the pig who had been on his property. And this actually led these two bodies to sit separately, and it was the real cause of bicameralism in the colonies. And it was kind of hard to believe it started with a pig that strayed from its property, but that was the sort of problem that arose.
>>Oh, that is fascinating. That has nothing to do with the pork barrel, or bringing home the pork to your district?
>>No, that word comes up in the nineteenth century.
>>That is in the nineteenth century with all that. Those early legislative bodies, how did they operate internally? What kind of rules and committee structures did they have? 
>>Well, the colonial Assemblies were interesting. They first got their rules from Parliament, and they sort of used what was available, and there was this time lag between what was happening back in London and what would happen in the colonies, because of how long it took for information to get across the ocean. But over time, the colonies began to develop their own sets of rules to meet their own particular organizational needs. And you can best see this in the rise of committee systems and colonial Assemblies. There were committees established in the British Parliament, but they faded away during the colonial era. But in the colonies, these committees became more and more important, and they changes from being ad hoc committees created for each bill, for each time that it would be read, to having standing committees of the sort we are familiar with today, committees that stand throughout the entire session, continue from session to session, have defined jurisdictions that they oversee.
>>So in the early days, an ad hoc committee might be created to deal with each bill that was introduced?
>>That’s right, You might have five different bills established on, or five different committees established on one bill, one to have it drafted to be introduced, one for the first hearing, one for the second hearing, one for the third hearing…
>>When was the very first standing committee created?
>>Well, the first standing committees arise early in the 1700s, for the most part. You might be able to find a few back a little bit earlier. They become most pronounced in Virginian and Pennsylvania. And particularly in Virginia they began to operate in the same fashion that we are used to seeing committees operate today in our Legislatures, where you had up to six standing committees in Virginia with defined jurisdictions. Bills would be introduced, they would be referred to the committee, and the committee would do the bulk of the initial work developing that legislation and deciding whether it would continue on or not.
>>In one of your articles, I find it kind of interesting, a little paragraph you wrote about quorums, that in the State Legislatures there are different standards for establishing quorums, whether for doing business, or for holding the session, or for adjourning. Where did that all get started?
>>Well, you need a quorum rule to decide how many people have to be present to make decisions. And so it is reasonable to have a quorum rule. The problem is, what level do you set the quorum? And in many of the colonial Assemblies it was hard to get people to come to where the Assembly was meeting. In order to have enough people to make a decision, you would sort of set the quorum at the right level. So some colonial Assemblies had very low quorum requirements, and they might adjust them to meet whatever expectation they had for participation. But as the Assemblies developed as organizations, they began to develop different kinds or quorums, sometimes to deal with money bills, those that might deal with the expenditure of money, or with taxes, they would have higher quorum requirements. More people had to be there. And they would have lower quorums needed to adjourn, or to conduct more regular business.
>>So each state or each colony really took on their own process in making adjustments to the rules.
>>They did. They each had their own particular needs. They had particular problems that they faced, and they devised ruled to deal with their specific problems.
>>Let’s talk about leadership. Right now you have Presidents of the Senate; you have Speakers of the House. Where do the words like Speaker of the House evolve from, and what was the early history of the leadership positions?
>>The Speaker is a position that we took from the British Parliament. It was imported here, and you find Speakers from the beginning in the Assemblies. The Speaker in the British model was really more of a non-partisan referee, and you still see that if you watch the British Parliament on something like C-Span. You can see the Speaker performing that sort of role.
>>Did the early Parliaments of the early legislative bodies in the United State have the wigs and those kinds of protocols that you see in the House of Commons?
>>No. There were no organized parties in the colonial Assemblies, save for late in Rhode Island’s history they developed a party system. But elsewhere there weren’t parties. There were occasionally factions that might be organized around region or occasionally family. But there weren’t any sort of parties that ran candidates for office and continued from election to election. 
>>How about Presidents of the Senate as the upper chambers got created?
>>The upper chambers were colonial advisors. These were people who were appointed to serve the governor. And so the sort of State Senate that we are familiar with is really a creation of the revolutionary era. These Assemblies which had been appointed in most of the colonies became elected bodies after the Declaration of Independence and the development of state constitutions. There you begin to see more organization, with again some position created to function like speaker that is somebody who would act as the presiding officer. And that is where the organization started.
>>You had referenced in one of your articles how the practice of the Electoral College in electing our presidents really got started in State Legislatures. I found that very fascinating. What is the background on that?
>>It is. It is a curious thing, because you look at the Electoral College, something most Americans don’t understand very well, and wonder where they developed this idea. And it was actually used to elect the Upper House in the Maryland State Legislature after the first constitution was written in the Revolutionary era. You had a division between the eastern part of Maryland and the western part of Maryland, and so each of the counties and two cities would elect electors who would then elect the state senators. And so that idea was already in use in Maryland when they sort of seized on it in Philadelphia to use for the election of the President.
>>As the state legislatures developed, they had a hundred and seventy years before Congress existed.
>>You look at the Virginia Legislature, and the Virginia House of Burgesses becomes the Virginia House of Delegates with the first constitution in Virginia, but basically all that was just a new name slapped on an existing institution. And so Virginia was in existence for a hundred and seventy years before congress first sits.
>>How many of the practices of the legislative bodies did Congress take over? Is there a model of Congress in the Senate similar to the state bodies?
>>It picked up a lot, a lot more than we probably recognize. If you look at the decision to be bicameral in the US Constitution, bicameral, two House Legislatures were in place in most of the states and in place in most of the colonies. The names that we use, House of Representative, the Senate, were taken from the State Legislative experience. Some of the important measures in the constitution for Congress, the right for each chamber to develop its own rules, the veto power, those were taken fro the existing state constitutions and the experience of the State Legislatures. So in important ways, Congress was modeled on State Legislatures, rather than the other way around. 
>>Now, states like Utah came onto the scene later in the countries development. Our State Legislature really grew out of the Territorial Legislative body, kind of in total, except with some exceptions in key areas. Was that very common out west where the Territorial Government really was the more critical element in starting the organization of government?
>>It was very much the case that as you moved away from the original colonies, as new territories were established, there were procedures in place that would lead them toward statehood and one of the procedures was the establishment of a representative institution to help govern the territory. And so you find in Iowa, you find in Utah, you find in any place out in the west, almost always a Territorial Legislature that preceded the State Legislature, but really does create the situation in which the State Legislature would exist. Here in Iowa, for example, when the State Legislature first met in 1846, there was already a fourteen year history of the Territorial Legislature that had preceded it.
>>Those early days were really rough and tumble politics, weren’t they? 
>>Well, it is interesting, because…
>>Don’t we even have some shootings and things?
>>Oh, sure. You have some fascinating events. You are looking at institutions that are being established in places that don’t have much in the way of the things we identify with civilized society.
>>You are not talking about Iowa, now, you are talking about Utah.
>>Well, any place out west. These are rough and tumble societies, and the people who are living in these territories are fairly rough individuals. But they are taking institutions that are fairly well developed. The rules are taken from existing legislatures. And so you find these fairly well developed organizational structures being populated by men who are really pioneers, and who have that sort of pioneering notion of how to behave. And so their manners were lacking in great part. In Arkansas in the first session of the State Legislature there the Speaker and one of the members got into an argument over a banking bill, and they each pulled a hunting knife, and fought on the floor of the House of Representatives, and the Speaker killed one of his members.
>>Oh, my goodness. That’s party discipline. 
>>So this was not uncommon, because you had these guys who were not terribly civilized. That is why they had pushed out west. They were men who wanted to be sort of on their own and working in a legislative body is the kind of thing that can bring their frustrations to the surface.
>>Thank you, President, for that interesting discussion of the history of State Legislature. Let’s now turn our attention to modern State Legislatures. Our author, Dr. Alan Rosenthal of Rutgers University points out a few common elements among the State Legislatures. For instance, as previously discussed, except Nebraska, all the states have bicameral Legislatures. Typically the House of Representatives or the Assembly as the lower house, and the Senate as the upper house. Also, all states have a system of standing committees to examine complex political issues and to progress legislation. These committees are the workhorses, if you will, of the State Legislatures. Committees review and report their opinions on bills. Along with leadership, they largely decide what action will be taken on a given bill. Will it be buried? Will it be killed altogether? Enacted into law? Committees play a major role in these decisions. Another common element among the State Legislatures is that all the Legislatures are typically controlled by member of the Democratic or Republican parties. It is interesting to note that at least on paper, the unicameral Nebraska State Legislature is again the exception, with its members being elected without an official political affiliation. Another common element of modern State Legislatures is that all the states have presiding officers in both Houses. Typically the Speaker of the House presides over the House of Representatives, and the President of the Senate, or President Pro Tempore, presides over the Senate. Although State Legislatures have common elements, our author reminds us that they also have some important differences. First, the legislative sessions and professionalization of the Legislatures can very greatly from state to state. Some states are large, full-time professional Legislatures, like California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Ohio. These State Legislatures tend to be filled with highly educated and politically experienced members who may represent tens of thousand of constituents. They typically have large staffs, make as much as one hundred thousand dollars or more, and tend to be well informed of the proposed legislation. However, these legislators don’t always interact with the average person. In contrast, other states have therefore chosen to have smaller, part-time, non-professionalized citizen legislatures, like Montana, Vermont, New Hampshire, South Dakota, North Dakota, and, to a certain extent, our state of Utah. These legislators are not always well educated or experienced in the dealings of government. They typically only meet for a few months or less, have a small staff, and are paid just a few dollars a day. However, these Legislatures typically have more interaction with constituents. Another difference between State Legislatures is that some states have chosen to amend their state constitutions or statutes to limit the amount of the terms that legislators can serve, typically around six to twelve years. These states argue that term limits prevent career politicians and limit corruption, they also argue that term limits increase the amount of control the people have over their government. In contrast, other states have rejected term limits. These states argue that legislators need time to study issues and to learn the ins and outs of the legislative system. They also argue that the constituencies of the individual legislators can always enforce term limits at the ballot box. They argue that people should be free to elect or re-elect their representatives as many times as they choose. If you are wondering about Utah, we enacted term limits, but then later repealed them. The last important difference Rosenthal mentions is political culture. We recently asked Alan the following questions.
>>Well you know, political culture is a very vague term. It can’t be specified exactly. I mean, usually political culture means the history of the state. You know, what has gone on before. And states obviously have different histories. What it has to do with also are the attitudes of the population of the state. How they regard politics, how involved they are in politics. And I think political culture applies to the current political elite that is engaged in politics. So basically you will find very different political cultures, as you might imagine, in a state like California, which is as large as most nations are, and very professional, very serious, spread out. Or as compared to a state like Vermont, where it is small and everything is small, and people know one another. Just look at the size of legislative districts, and you can see an important difference. And it is a difference in a culture. In Vermont you have got districts of four thousand people in the House, eight thousand people in the Senate district. A legislator in those districts can get to know everybody; can get to know all of his or her constituents pretty well. In California, you have got almost eight hundred thousand people in a Senate district. Actually, over eight hundred thousand people in a Senate district, and over four hundred thousand people in an Assembly district. So basically you can’t know people. It is a different form of representation. What is expected in a state like Vermont out of politics is very different than what is expected in California. We are not likely to have an Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor in Vermont. You are likely to have, and do have, Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. And I think the cultures of the state are something that determine how politics and how legislatures operate.
>>I am not an expert on Utah, but you know, absolutely the Mormon dominance and Mormon values have got to be important to the culture of Utah. And obviously, you know, you can’t look at the Utah legislature without recognizing the influence of Mormons. Just as you look at Hawaii, and the importance of the Japanese and the Chinese in the Hawaiian political culture, the framework there. And that is extraordinarily important. So I think that every State Legislature just emanates the culture, and can’t escape the culture. The cultures change. I mean, the southern political cultures have changed as southern states have changed, but they don’t change overnight.
>>Thanks, Alan. Let’s narrow our discussion to the State of Utah. The Utah State Legislature is bicameral Legislature with a House of Representatives and a Senate. Although it has become a little more professionalized in recent years, it is still largely considered a citizen Legislature, and it meets part-time, just forty-five days a year. 
>>[graphics] 
This brings us now to our second lesson point, State Legislative Leadership. Speaking of the influence of leadership on the legislative process, political scientist William Keefe and Morris Ogul state…
>>[graphic]
>>The majority leadership of the Utah House of Representatives consists of:
>>[graphics] 
>>Speaker of the House Greg Curtis recently sat down with us to give us some more insight into the workings of the Utah House of Representatives and his role as speaker.
>>Thank you, Rick. Today we are speaking with the Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives, Speaker Greg Curtis. Curtis is a veteran in the Utah Legislature, being elected in 1994 in the elections, starting his term of office in 1995. He has moved up through the ranks in the Utah House, being elected Speaker in 2004. He has quickly been identified as one of the most powerful people in Utah. If you want to get anything through the Utah legislature, Speaker Curtis is the person to get the support of and to work with to achieve the legislative accomplishments. Speaker, we are delighted to have you join us. You are doing a great job in the Utah legislature. Let’s start out by having you tell us a little bit about what are your powers as Speaker of the House. 
>>Well, thanks, it is good to be with you. As Speaker of the House, I preside over the House, and so when we are actually on the floor, in chambers, set the agenda. Preside; appoint the committees, and what other functions come with presiding and running the House.
>>I mentioned in my introduction that it is a very powerful position; You are a person to be dealt with on a variety of different issues. What is the core strength of that political power that you hold as speaker?
>>Well, when it comes down to it, the reality is that I get one vote, just like every other representative. But one of the things is that you colleagues elect you as Speaker of the House. And in doing so, they are saying, “We are looking to you for your leadership and guidance.” And so it comes down to the strength that is in your relationship with your colleagues, and know whether or not they will follow you and support you in regards to the direction that you are trying to take. 
>>Well, that sounds very nice, but I want to push you just a little bit more. If I am an average legislator, I have just been elected, what are the types of things that I have to worry about with the Speaker being happy or unhappy with me about? Is it appointments to a committee, is it scheduling of a bill before the full legislature?
>>Well, obviously yes, I make all the appointments to the committees. I work with my leadership team for their input, but ultimately the decision rests with me in appointing the standing committees and the appropriations committees, as well, and then also in scheduling. I mean, the rules committee is a powerful committee that sends bills to committees, prioritizes bills for debate on the floor. I make all those appointments. And every time a rules list is prepared to send bills out, I review that, add to it or subtract there from. And so those are some of the powers that I have in regards to specific legislation.
>>Do you have favorite legislators that you would go to continually that are part of the Curtis team, and others that are kind of anti-Curtis, or do you consider one just a happy family?
>>Well, we are a happy family; I can’t answer any other way. But you know, you love all of your children equally, but they don’t all necessarily get the same thing. Each legislator needs something a little different. You know, the reality of it is I am elected Speaker, and so one of the most difficult things that we do is have what we call leadership elections. And one of your colleagues runs against you. I mean candidly, politics, those who support you in your candidacy for Speaker, you want to be able to say, “Ok, I a going to work closer with them. They have supported me; I am going to support them.” Those who are detractors, or those who are saying that they are going to try to get somebody else to be Speaker; you are not as inclined to say, “Ok, I will be supportive. I will work with them as much.” But a reality of politics is that your best friend today may be your opposition tomorrow on a bill, ok? And you have to not take it personal, and know where to draw the line in regards to it. You can’t just start punishing people, because then you loose your support.
>>Because the next day another issue will emerge. A friend of mine once said that on a college campus the conflict is all submerged. And outwardly everybody gets along, but there is a lot of politics underneath that. In the legislature, his observations was that everybody gets along and the conflict is really out there, front and center. How do you deal with such a series of contentious issues and the conflict that goes along with compromise and making tough decisions?
>>Well, it is one of the interesting things for a part-time lay legislature in regards to that, because some individuals have a harder time dealing with that. My professional background as a trial attorney doing some prosecution and other things, the reality of it is that you learn to be able to distance yourself from what might be appeared as personal attacks. If somebody comes up to me and says, “That is the stupidest bill I have ever heard,” I don’t look at it and say a personal attack on me. They just don’t like my bill. If a legislator can’t learn to distance himself from somebody being opposed to their idea versus taking that person and saying they are opposed to me, they will not be very successful. 
>>So how do you handle that personal attack? Do you just let it slide off your back? Occasionally there is an editorial or two that might not be positive. Do you just go home and say, “Well, that is fine. I am going to do something else.”
>>Yes. You know, over the years either you get the thicker skin; you learn sometimes to avoid it. I don’t feel it necessary to read every editorial that wants to opine on my shortcomings. So you learn to just let it roll off your back. If it is a field that you want to play in, be involved in, you had better get used to that.
>>Shifting gears slightly, leadership. Our textbook talks about three different styles of legislative leaders. One style is a command style; it says go out and do this, follow me. The second one is a coordinating style that says that I am kind of the manager. And we have different forces, and I kind of coordinate the activities. And the third style is consensus style where you try to build consensus. Now seventy-five house members, consensus is probably difficult to exhibit. How would you describe your style of leadership?
>>I don’t think they are mutually exclusive, especially in the legislative process. There are times where some people would clearly say I have used the command style. And I think there are times that I would acknowledge that I have. You have to. But there are times where you have to say, “Let’s build a consensus.” And in building that consensus, you might be able to say, “Ok, I am going to get thirty-five of the necessary thirty-eight to this point.” And you can’t get consensus, you can only get to thirty-five, so then maybe you drift over towards the command style and say, “I will go find those other three.” So it is a mixture.
>>So you have to be a persuasive person to get the thirty-eight vote from time to time. Can you give us an example where it has been really touch and go, that you had to exert maximum effort to get the thirty-eight votes you needed?
>>In the 2005 session, the funding for convention center facilities in the Salt Palace, funding was an issue. And I am the only elected member of majority party leadership. In the state of Utah, I am the only elected Republican in House or Senate leadership. Salt Lake County represents…
>>From Salt Lake County.
>>Yes. I am sorry. I may clarify, from Salt Lake County. And Salt Lake County represents about four percent of the state. And so you literally have a large Republican caucus, the largest Republican caucus is in Salt Lake County. But I only have one member of elected leadership. Smaller counties have greater representation. But they needed to fund the Salt Palace. And essentially I ended up going to my caucus, standing up, and pleading with them, persuading them, ultimately saying, “This is what needs to be done, and I am asking for your support.” We got more than thirty-eight votes, but the mood before that was that we don’t need to do this. We don’t need to move in that direction.
>>One thing I discovered was that legislative leaders occasionally are very good actors and are good at theater. Do you ever find yourself a little bit in the theater mode?
>>Boy, you are asking me to give up all my trade secrets. I could be fairly theatrical when I need to be. Some people say, “Speaker Curtis, he has a temper. Or maybe he shows his emotion. Most of the time I tell people, “When you need to be really, really concerned is when I just go completely silent and don’t say anything.” But yes, I can raise my voice, I can use other things, and it is theatrics at times.
>>Thanks, Bill. We now look at Utah’s upper chamber, the State Senate. The Senate Majority leadership which largely leads and directs the senate, is also Republican. In consists of:
>>[graphics]
>>The senate’s minority leadership consists of:
>>[graphics]
>>Recently we sat down with Senate President John Valentine to learn more about the Utah Senate and his role as the President of the Senate.
>>I have the pleasure of chatting with Senator John Valentine. Senator Valentine served for ten years in the Utah House of Representatives. He has served for nine years in the Utah Senate. He is currently serving as President of the Senate. Senator Valentine represents the northern half of Utah County. So Senator Valentine thanks for spending some time with us. But tell us a little bit about your job. What is a State Senate President?
>>Well, a State Senate President is sometimes a baby sitter, sometimes he is almost clergy, sometimes he is a referee. Most of the time he is just a friend of the other twenty-eight Senators.
>>It sounds like kind of a father of a large family.
>>Very much so, yes.
>>In Utah, we have twenty-nine Senators.
>>Yes, twenty-nine Senators in the Senate. There are seventy-five members of the House of Representatives. 
>>And all twenty-nine elected each election? Every for years?
>>No. In actual fact, Senators are elected for four year terms, and we have half the Senate that is up every two years. So half the Senate is up for two years, and then the other half is in the second two years.
>>But your term as President of the Senate is for two years, not for four.
So…
>>Yes, President is for two years because of that convention of having to change every two years, we reorganize the leadership.
>>So in case a new set of people get elected, then you are up again. So you have to stay very close to your colleagues. 
>>Very close to your colleagues. It is very one on one, especially in the Senate.
>>Now what are the biggest powers you have? Now, I have been standing by your desk I have been looking at you gavel, the codes, and stuff. You have some other tools that you use, right?
>>Well, we do. We have some great tools that we use, especially here in the computer age. When you sit on my dais, I have of course the gavel, I have the other things you would see, the code…
>>And the tissue box.
>>And the tissue box, of course. But I have some secrets, too. Do you want to hear my secrets?
>>Yes, go for it. That is the inside stuff.
>>On the right hand side I have got a computer screen, and it is a touch screen which turns on and off all the microphones. 
>>So let’s say a Senator is just saying something that is outrageous. Can you just push the button and you no longer hear him?
>>Exactly.
>>Have you ever done that?
>>No.
>>No, you haven’t. But you have the power.
>>I have the power to do that, but no. It also tells me who is voting for what. So I can see who is voting red or who is voting green, which are the two choices.
>>Yes or no.
>>And who is off the floor. That is a white. And so I can say to the Sergeant of Arms, “We need to go get Senator Such-and-such,” while we are in the middle of the vote to make sure that we have the vote pass.
>>In many State Legislatures, the voting will be for a certain time period, like you will have one minute to vote yes or no on an issue. In the Utah Senate, is what we would call leaving the boards open for however long until you push the button that ways the board is closed?
>>Yes and no, ok? What we have is a rule in the Senate that you must be on the floor and must vote. We also have a rule that you are not supposed to leave floor when we are during session. Now we can get excuses from the President to leave the floor, but during that time they are off the floor, they still have the right to vote. I think of one time when LeRay McCallister wasn’t there; we had to send the highway patrol to go get him.
>>Is that right? Do we have in Utah the Call of the House?
>>We do have a Call the Senate.
>>Call the Senate.
>>Call the Senate, which allows you to get everybody to come to the floor of the Senate who is not already on the Senate floor.
>>So would that be when you would send out the state police?
>>That’s when you would send out the state police.
>>Now how often does that happen?
>>I can remember it happening once in my time up there.
>>And what was the issue?
>>You know, I don’t even remember the issue, I just remember the drama of having to wait for an hour while the highway patrol escorted Senator McCallister from Provo back to Salt Lake to vote.
>>Did he vote the right way?
>>He voted the right way. It was a fourteen to fourteen tie, so…
>>We had that happen one time in the Michigan Senate when I served there, and the state police went out, got the errant Senator, brought him back, and then he was so mad that he voted opposite what everybody thought he was going to vote, just to show that it wasn’t worthwhile to do that. But that didn’t happen in that case.
>>No, Senator McCallister actually was teaching a class at Brigham Young University. He had an excused absence, but it was a fourteen to fourteen tie.
>>So they needed him back.
>>They needed him back.
>>So you have the voting board to kind of keep track.
>>Yes, that is on the right hand side. On the left hand side I have split computer screen, two screens which split the information on it. The first one is the bill text. I have all the text of the bill, and all of the amendments coming up. On the left hand screen, I have an agenda of both the House and the Senate. So I can see what the House is debating at the very moment we are debating something in the Senate.
>>In Utah, does the House and the Senate meet at exactly the same time?
>>We do. By rule, the House and the Senate have to convene at the same time, and they are supposed to close at approximately the same time. Now sometimes we will go over. Sometimes the House will go over. That is ok. 
>>Because a lot of states, the House will meet in the morning and the Senate in the afternoon, or vice versa, so they can track what each other are doing. But in this case, is it state law, or is it the constitution?
>>No, actually it is by rule of the Legislature…
>>By rule.
>>That we meet at the same time. We actually have a typical day for the first probably four or five weeks of the session, which starts of with a couple of hours of committee meetings, a couple of hours of floor time, caucus lunch, a couple of hours of floor time, back to committee meetings for a couple of hours. That is a pretty typical day during the legislative session. Then, as the session gets on towards the end, we will drop all the committee meetings and go straight just to floor time, and we will go four hours, break, four hours, break, four hours.
>>How do you keep all these issues straight? Do you ever find yourself just overwhelmed, and you say, “Well…”
>>That is probably one of the biggest challenges of being a Senator in a state, because you have got so many issues that are coming at you all the time. The proverbial, it is like taking a drink out of a fire hose, is very correct. It is very true.
>>Now some political scientists, Malcolm Jewell and I think it is Wickers, the last name, have hypothesized that there are three different styles of leadership. There is the command style that said, “Troops, let’s go out and do this, and take the hill.”  Then there is the kind of coordination style, that you just kind of help coordinate what goes on. And then there is the consensus style, in which the idea is to bring people together and reason together. How would you define your style as president of the senate? 
>>I am very clearly the last style. My style has always been, in the nineteen years I have been up there, to try to find the common ground, try to build a consensus. There are usually elements of a position that can be acceptable. If you can’t find some element in the position, then of course you just don’t even go there.
>>Are there any circumstances where you have to do the command strategy?
>>Oh, yes.
>>Where you have to say, “I know that not everybody is going to be happy with this. Let’s just accept a fifteen to fourteen vote and move on.”
>>Let me give you an example.
>>Ok.
>>In the recent, recent past, when we were dealing with the reapportionment in Utah to get the fourth seat for Utah, I had to exercise command style. We had a lot of people who said, “We don’t want to do this. We have some real problems with this.” And I said, “You know what? We need to do it. The people of Utah sent us here to do that, and we are going to do it.” So we sat down and we did it. I didn’t have to try to build a consensus. I just took it, and said, “That is what we are going to do.”
>>Do you apply the same approach with your relationships with the House? 
>>Yes, we do. The House is a different body and has a different dynamic with it. Having seventy-five players, it is a lot harder to get a consensus than it is with twenty-nine players. It is just harder mechanically to do it.
>>So we are going to be interviewing Speaker Curtis. And how would you define Speaker Curtis’s style in the House, compared to your style in the senate?
>>Well, I would think that the speaker has elements of the three styles, as well. He probably will view himself as being more of a command style.
>>Because of largely the numbers.
>>Yes. Because of the numbers, he has to drive the agenda. And were the roles reversed, he might take more of a consensus building style if he were Senator, and I would  probably take more of a command style if I were a Speaker, simply because of the nature of the body. 
>>Now when I was in the Senate, the House members all felt the Senators had huge egos compared to what they had.
>>We do. Here is no question about it.
>>No doubt about that. Does everybody in politics have to have a strong ego to be involved?
>>You have to have an ego to be able to stand all of the bullets, all the spears and arrows that come your way. You have to really believe in yourself. Because if you don’t believe in yourself, no body else will.
>>How do you respond to like a bad editorial?
>>Usually I just kind of grumble a little bit and go on.
>>Grumble and go on. Our textbook talks about different responsibilities. I want to hit these quickly. The responsibilities that a leader in the Legislature has. And I would enjoy your comments. The Power of Appointment. You have to make a lot of committee appointments. In fact, at the program we were at this morning, you talked about that. How do you go about deciding who gets to chair an appropriations committee, or chair the education committee?
>>There are a lot of things that go into that mix, that go into the decision-making process of how I put committee chair, who sits on the committee. Most of the time, what I do is I try to lay out all the members, lay out all the committee assignments, and say, “Ok, where does this person have a skill set that works best? Where does this person have an interest? Where do I need to have this geographic disbursement on this particular committee? Where do I need to have a mixture between new members and old members on this committee? Where do I need to have enough votes for a particular agenda that I want to go?” And so all those things go into the mix.
>>Do any Senators just come to you and say, “I have to be on this committee”?
>>Oh, yes.
>>And how do you respond to that?
>>Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
>>Ok. How about Presiding, another responsibility? You are up there with you gavel. You get to call the various people to speak. How heavy of a burden is that?
>>Sometimes the duty of Presiding is one of the heaviest burdens, because you have to make the final call as to whether or not a bill goes forward, or whether or not a bill doesn’t go forward. Sometimes you have to make the call of the last vote. By rule in the Utah Legislature, the presiding officer casts the last vote. So in the event of a tie, I break the tie.
>>Now in Utah, do you cast the votes by voice, not by electronics? You have all those electronic equipment, but yet when the vote is taken, you read the roll, and it is aye and nay.
>>In the house, it is done electronically, and they do have the vote open for a certain time period, just like you were speaking of the federal Congress. In the Senate, however, it is done still the old traditional way of voice vote, where the Senator voices the vote.
>>Is it done alphabetically?
>>It is done alphabetically.
>>Except for the President of the Senate. So you get to cast the last vote.
>>That is correct. 
>>And what happens if the vote is going against the way you would want it to go? Once the roll call is taken, you can’t stop it midway and…
>>Actually, there is a way you can.
>>Some inside information.
>>I’ll give you some inside information. In the Senate, we have the right to explain our vote. And that is one of the reasons why we have a voice vote. So every member could conceivable explain the vote. 
>>While they are voting?
>>While they are voting. So, since I vote last, I can, at the time that the vote is cast, I can go ahead and explain my vote. If I am a no vote, for example, I have some very compelling reasons, I will explain that. And then, at that point, sometimes other senators will change their vote before I strike the gavel on the vote.
>>So there is a moment before you strike the gavel on the vote that people can jump up and say, “Senator Valentine was so brilliant, I changed my no vote to yes,” or vice versa. 
>>Yes. They can say, “Bramble changes to no.” “Killpack changes to no.”  “Steven changes to no.” And all of a sudden, that is three or four votes.
>>Has that happened periodically?
>>Yes, I have done it probably three or four times.
>>Another power, referring bills. I introduce a bill to do some good things for my constituents, and you have the decision responsibility to say, “Well, it is going to go to the education committee, or maybe to the drainage committee,” or something.
>>I have the funnel responsibility in that, but I have allocated a portion of the responsibility to a rules committee that is made up of other senators. The rules committee, however, gives me the list before we finally read it in, and I can make changes from that final list.
>>So the rules committee doesn’t make the final decision. You still would have the authority.
>>I still have the final decision, but the rules committee handles the majority, and ninety-nine percent of the time, they are correct.
>>Have you ever found a bill that you just didn’t like, that you sent to an unfriendly committee that you knew would kill it? 
>>Of course. That is the process of having an open process. You send it to committee, they have a debate, but the committee is going to kill it because they don’t believe in it.
>>And the reverse of that, have you had a bill that you really liked, you might want to send it to a friendly committee?
>>Yes, again. I think any leader of a chamber would be defeating himself if they didn’t do that.
>>Taking the heat, another category. Do you ever that it is part of your responsibility to literally take the heat from the public for something the senate has done?
>>When you are the head of an organization, you always take the heat, whether you are the President of a University or the President of the Senate. You have to be thick enough skinned to be able to take the heat.
>>Give us an example. What would that mean to you?
>>Oh my gosh, there are so many times that it happens that it is hard to believe, because you read about it in the newspaper about every week, something that they are attacking you. I will give you one very, very recently. We had a fundraising event at UVSC to try to retire debt from some of our Senators and some of our Representatives. And the morning of that particular event, there of course was the editorial, “Against the Fundraiser Event that Senator Bramble and Senator Valentine Are Putting on at UVSC.” All we were trying to do was retire the debt from the last campaign cycle. You just take the heat.
>>Nineteenth century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who was instrumental in the unification of Germany, is reported to have said, “There are two things you don’t want to see being made. Sausage, and legislation. Well, next week we will be looking at at least one of them—the law making process. And now, for some closing remarks from President Sederburg.   >>Thank you, Professor Griffin. I hope you have enjoyed the program today talking about the powers of the State Legislature here in Utah and the significant role that the leadership of the State Legislature plays in conducting state policy on a wide variety of issues. As a State Senator in Michigan, I never achieved the role of President of the State Senate. I have always wanted to adjourn the session. So this is my opportunity to officially adjourn tonight’s program. Thanks for joining us.