Unicameralism: Half the Government, Double the Fun!

Last week, I took a family road trip to Nebraska.  It was a quiet, relaxing trip.  Perhaps one of the highlights though, was our day in Lincoln, during which we toured the state capital building.  On this tour, I learned one of the most mesmerizing facts about ANY state government: Nebraska is the ONLY state in the union to use unicameral legislature.  "What is unicameralism?" you may ask.  Great question... I sure didn't know.  All the other state governments, as well as the Federal Government, use 2 houses of representatives, or a "bicameral" legislation: a Congress and a Senate.  Nebraska, on the other hand, only has a Senate.  There are 49 Senators each representing about 35,000 citizens.  Why in the world would they adopt such a format?  A unicameral legislation is ultimately more cost-effective and efficient:

• Fewer stalemates between the two houses
• More accountability for representatives
• Reduced staffing costs
• Currently, houses negotiate their differences through "conference committees," a bureaucratic waste of time and resources.  In the unicameral system, this would be eliminated.
• Much simpler process for passing bills
• Fewer opportunities for influence from lobbyists

As the tour continued, I couldn't shake the thought: "what if we applied this model to the Federal Government."

Case Study: New York State

Before we look at the big picture, I think you can appreciate Nebraska's unicameral model better if we contrast it to a state where bicameralism has failed miserably.  I was a resident of New York State from 2006-2009.  As I tried to learn more about my local government, I observed a complete mess, the climax of which, hitting in 2009:

• March 29- Both the General Assembly (what New York State refers to as it's Congress or House of Representatives) and the Senate had been struggling to reach an agreement on the state budget by the April 1 deadline.  Behind closed doors, Governor David Patterson, along with the Speaker of the General Assembly and Senate Majority leader, hash out an outline for said budget
• June 8 - Two Democratic Senate leaders, Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada, form a coup with the Republican members, essentially agreeing to "vote Republican," thus giving the GOP a 32-30 majority rule.
• June 15: Monserrate decided to side with the Democrats again, causing a 31-31 split.  The result was a month-long stalemate, in which both sides resorted to childish name-calling and attempting to lock each other out of the Senate chamber... seriously, Democrats sat in the chamber with the doors locked, and the Republicans were scrambling to find a janitor or anyone with keys!
• July 8: the Lieutenant Governor's seat was vacant at the time.  Patterson had been appointed governor a year earlier because his predecessor, Elliot Spitzer, was busted in a prostitution scandal.  Patterson tried to appoint a Lieutenant Governor to break the tie, but then Attorney General (now Governor) Andrew Cuomo deemed the appointment illegal. 
• July 9: Espada decided to return to the Democrat side, effectively ending the crisis.  For one month, nothing got accomplished, Senators still received paychecks, the General Assembly could not move anything forward, and New York tax dollars essentially went to waste.

I could not believe the utter incompetence I was witnessing.  In September of that year, I attended the Hamilton County Republican Picnic (Yes, that's a real thing; if you're too cool to vote, yes, it's as lame as it sounds; if you're a political junkie, yes, it's as awesome as it sounds!).  I had the opportunity to speak face-to-face with our State Senator at the time, Betty Little.  I asked her candidly how such a debacle could ever be allowed to happen and where the accountability was.  Her answer was underwhelming, but there was one portion of it that has always stuck out as peculiar to me - she referred to New York State Senate meetings as "New York City Council Meetings II."  She flat out admitted that there were segments of the population whose voices were not heard.  Our legislative branch was broken.

I left New York disgusted and in desire of radical change.  Around the same time, former US Congressman Rick Lazio wrote a brief, but compelling piece for the New York Times citing the recent debacle in Albany as an example of why New York could use the unicameral system.  I was unaware of both the article and unicameralism at at the time (I just came across it this week), but had I read it then, I would have been fully on that band wagon much sooner.  Let's take the New York model of disaster, see if we can draw parallels to the Federal government, and look at how Nebraska can be an example for the entire country.

Trim the Fat

In case you haven't noticed, our government is very inefficient.  It takes FOREVER for bills to pass, our spending gradually increases while cost-cutting measures actually decrease, the two houses constantly bicker, and most representatives seem to only have their political careers in mind rather than the interests of the people they are "serving."  It's a mess and disgrace.

New York barely passed a budget on time in 2009, and even then, it was behind closed doors with a lot of pork spending attached to it.  The U.S. representatives are no different.  How many years in a row have we heard threats of a "government shut down" if a budget isn't passed in time?  How many years has it been now where the solution is to raise the debt ceiling, only punting the problem to a later date?  If these clowns were accountants at a Fortune 500 company, they would have been fired a long time ago.  Currently, we have a combined 535 representatives between Congress and the Senate.  That's 535 salaries the US tax dollars are supporting right now to do nothing for this country.  Here's a thought: if they can't come up with cost-cutting measures to get out of debt, we can save money by cutting the number of salaries in half!

Reduce the Chatter

As mentioned before, states and our Federal Government use "conference committees" to negotiate differences between the 2 houses.  Remember the first point in the New York case study?  After months of negotiation between two houses, the final decision came down to 3 men in a closed room.  This happens in Washington all the time.  What that means for you and I is that we go from having a collective body representing the entire population and making the important decisions for our country, to just a handful of people deciding what's important behind closed doors. Furthermore, these snakes tend to solve their differences by making shady deals behind those same closed doors.  I don't know about you, but that's not the kind of cronyism I intended my votes or tax dollars to go to!  

Get 'er Done

As Lazio aptly mentioned, the New York legislature moves at a snail's pace because the two houses can't agree on anything.  Sound familiar?  With one house, a decision gets made much sooner, and once it's passed, it's done!

Critics will argue this will lead to poorly thought out, hastily-made decisions.  Hmmmm.  Poorly thought out, hastily-made decisions.  Where have I heard that before?  I seem to remember our now very-flawed Affordable Health Care Act being passed overnight.  I believe opponents referred to it as "shoved down people's throats."  Keep in mind, the bill was almost 2,000 page long.  Surely all 535 representatives had plenty of time for that leisurely read before voting.... right?  

In this case, I'll take the pro over the con.  I'd rather have fewer representatives able to think more clearly with less chatter, thereby making decisions with less bickering.  In other words - leaders who can accomplish something!

Can you hear me now?

One concern of the unicameral system, is that if we just went to a body of Senators, the individual pockets of voices around the country are no longer heard.  However, in the words of the State Senator I cited earlier, that's already the case.  Let's be honest, how many of you reading this actually feel like you're concerns are being addressed at the state and national level?  Right now, we have too many career politicians (I could write a whole separate blog on term limits) more concerned about advancing their careers than serving the people who voted them in.

In a unicameral system, there's more accountability.  If something doesn't get passed, leaders can't blame members of the other house for not doing their part.  Many people also don't even know who their representatives are these days.  Part of that is due to apathy, but the other part of that is sheer number: 535.  I barely have that many friends on Facebook, more than half of whom I haven't spoken to in years!  How are we supposed to keep track of so many representatives?  I believe that in addition to term limits, a smaller crowd to hide behind and no second house to punt to would make a lot of politicians take the voice of the people more seriously.

How would this work?

I don't know.  But there are smarter people than me that could figure that out.  What I do know, is that if it were to happen, I'd gladly volunteer to hand out the pink slips to the Congressmen and Senators that would get released.  I'd even wear a pink tutu and plastic wings, calling myself the pink slip fairy - prancing up and down the halls of capital hill putting pink slips under office doors.  Bye Bye Nancy Pelosi. Hasta La Vista John Boehner (yes, this is a bi-partisan axing!) Sayonara Barbara Boxer.  Smell ya later Bob Casey Jr.  You get the picture.

I understand that this likely will never happen.  The people in charge have gained too much power to ever prevent a sweeping reform like this from ever happening.  And that's the real problem.  Our government is supposed to be by the people and for the people.  Now it's by the people who bother to show up to the polls and for the politicians.  So let me scale back my previous suggestion.  Why don't we start by getting educated (who is your representative?).  Go vote (when's your next general election?).  And when the people in charge don't do their job, write them a letter.  There may be 535 representatives, but there's like 535 million citizens.  If the squeaky wheel gets the grease, a noisy engine gets full-scale transmission work.