In Bad Shape

To cope with the problems of Pennsylvania, the nation's third most populous state, the legislature has logged a grand total of 48 working days over the past six months. On the rare occasions when the legislators do convene, they get so little staff research assistance that decisions must often be based on inadequate information. Moreover, there are just too many lawmakers --253 in all. Not surprisingly, Republican Governor Raymond P. Shafer complains of "a state structure that has become alien to the needs of its citizens."

Yet for all of Pennsylvania's deficiencies, the fact is that most state governments are no better suited to deal with the complexities of modern U.S. life (among the exceptions are the most populous states, California and New York), and a number are much worse off. Though the plight of the nation's cities is more dramatic this summer, the states constitute a grave weakness in the U.S. system.

Taking a hard look at the longstanding problem, the influential Committee for Economic Development, a private, nonpartisan organization of 200 businessmen and educators, calls for a "sweeping renovation" of the states' obsolescent machinery. "The 50 legislatures are beset by crucial issues," says the committee in an 85-page study of American states, "but few are organized, equipped, qualified, or even empowered to perform their policy functions with distinction." Unless they shape up, it adds, the states will be unable to counter "any tendency toward monolithic centralization of power in the national government."

"Creative Statism." The states are, of course, chronically hard up for money. For the 17 that have no personal income taxes and the 28 with income taxes of 2% or less, an obvious solution is at hand. But what of the states that are already levying heavy income and sales taxes? New York, for one, is trying to flesh out its $4.3 billion in annual revenues with a state lottery, but ticket sales in the first month totaled less than one-fourth of the anticipated $30 million take. The California legislature last week approved Governor Ronald Reagan's request for a record $1 billion in new taxes, but only after a bitter political struggle.

Money aside., the state governments suffer from serious structural deficiencies. To make them capable of functioning effectively with national and local governments--a process described by Washington as "creative federalism" and by some Governors as "creative statism"--the C.E.D. recommends that:

>State constitutions should be shorn of "limitations that prevent constructive legislative and executive action" and of the hundreds of absurdly inconsequential statutes that now encumber many of them. North Carolina's constitution, for example, prohibits male and female prisoners from sharing the same jail cell. Alabama's and South Carolina's provide for the disenfranchisement of wife beaters. New York's has a provision stipulating the width of ski trails. -- State legislatures should never have more than 100 members (tiny New Hampshire has 424, or one for every 1,500 inhabitants); they should receive salaries of at least $15,000 a year in the smaller states, more in the larger ones. In 18 states, legislators are paid less than $2,000 annually; in another 17, less than $5,000. Legislators should serve for four years (two-year terms are often the rule) and should meet annually (instead of biennially, as in 29 states), thus affording more time for enacting bills and for research.

>All Governors should have four-year terms and freedom to seek re-election as often as they like. At present, eleven Governors are elected to two-year terms. Eleven others cannot succeed themselves--a restriction that can make them lame ducks the morning after their inauguration. Governors' salaries should be at least $30,000 a year; the Governor of Arkansas now makes $10,000 (not that the incumbent, Winthrop Rockefeller, needs more), and 17 other chief executives get $20,000 or less. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor should be from the same party and should be the state's only elective executive officials, says the C.E.D.

Offices in Corridors. Georgia's Democratic Governor Lester Maddox airily dismisses most of the C.E.D. recommendations, instead attributes the states' troubles to a yen by Washington "to take them over." But many Governors have long been pushing the sort of reforms proposed by the C.E.D. Says Vermont's Philip Hoff, a Democrat serving his third two-year term: "The states have forced the growth of centralized Federal Government because they have failed to meet their responsibilities."

Some states are groping toward solutions. New York and Rhode Island are holding constitutional conventions this summer, and as many as 16 other states may soon revamp outdated charters. California is trying to attract better legislators with better pay (annual salaries were raised from $6,000 to $16,000 last year), research staffs and offices of their own. In Illinois, where lawmakers use corridors as offices, a new $18 million legislative office building will soon be built. But improvements come slowly. State governments are more often characterized by "stagnation and inertia," says the C.E.D. report, than by drive and initiative. Unless they are "renovated in far-reaching ways," it concludes, "their policy and functional roles will wither away."

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