Monday, March 23, 2009

A Better System of State Government for the Legislature

The issue:

You have to figure that working sixty days straight with a time limit and knowing that you have no hope of getting through all of the legislation has to be one very stress filled period. I have to wonder how that leads to the making of better laws for this state. If our crime rate and the quality of our educational system are any type of indicators then I would say the system is a complete and total failure.

How about a common sense approach?

Maybe we should have a system where legislators enter into a shared data base issues that constituents have raised then the representatives could form a committee of all interest parties to research how best to resolve the issues using experts and examples from other states. Town hall meetings could be convened for the purpose of hearing from the voting public. If other states are doing a much better job at something we could follow their lead and develop a system like theirs that would increase success for our state.

The results from the use of a common sense approach:

This type of approach could make constituents feel like their voices are heard and increase the support for laws that are presented before the legislature. This type of approach might reduce the number of bills and the duplicating of issues before the legislature and increase the time legislators have to debate those bills in case of strong disagreement between any of the interested parties. Is anyone out there in this state for an organized state government with an orderly process for the creation of state laws?