03 February 2010

The Fifty States

 

Massachusetts state senators take the oath of office as a new session begins.

Massachusetts state senators take the oath of office as a new session begins.

This article is excerpted from the book American Citizenship, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs. View the entire book (PDF, 4.57MB).

As the U.S. Congress meets in Washington, D.C., state legislatures convene in each of the 50 state capitals to discuss state issues and make laws that apply to citizens within their own borders. Like the Congress, 49 of the states have two-house legislatures, composed predominantly of members of the two major political parties, Republican and Democratic. Only the state of Nebraska maintains a one-house legislature, and all its members are officially labeled as Independents.

A total of 7,382 Americans serve in state legislatures, elected by their fellow citizens for term lengths prescribed in state constitutions. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), the average age of state lawmakers is 56, with 61 percent between the ages of 30 and 60; nationally, 22.6 percent of them are women.

Until the 1960s, state legislatures generally met every other year for a limited number of days. Individual legislators were poorly paid and had little or no staff support. Today, however, 45 states hold annual legislative sessions, and many have increased legislative pay and added professional staff support. Still, the amount of time a legislator needs to fulfill his or her job varies greatly from state to state.

In large, industrialized states such as California, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania, for example, being a state legislator is a full-time job. In small or less populated states such as Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, the work of a state legislator occupies about 50 percent of his or her time. The other 40 states fall somewhere in between.

Legislators’ salaries reflect the demands of their jobs. Where the work is greatest, legislators are paid enough to live without needing outside income. At the other end of the spectrum, legislators receive low salaries and they continue to devote time to their private-sector careers to make a comfortable living. The NCSL reports that there is “a higher concentration of legislators serving during their income-earning years in states that maintain a full-time legislature with a higher salary. Legislatures that operate on a part-time basis and have lower salaries tend to have a higher number of younger and retired legislators.”

Whatever the size of a state legislature or the salary of its members, the importance of their work cannot be underestimated. Addressing a group of state legislators meeting in Washington in 2009, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said, “States are the laboratories for so many ideas. Some of the things that we [in Congress] have confidence to run with are things that have worked at the state level.”