This commentary is by Tom Koch of Barre Town, who served for 22 years in the Vermont House of Representatives.
Jon Margolis is dreaming. He proposes abolishing the state Senate and reducing the size of the Vermont House to 50 members or so.
Plain and simple, it’s not going to happen. The state Senate is written into the Vermont Constitution. All constitutional amendments must begin with a two-thirds vote of the Senate. The Senate is not going to vote to abolish itself. End of discussion.
But it should not be the end of the discussion, because there are very good reasons to maintain a bicameral legislature. As a former member of the House, I can say without hesitation that there were many times when the Senate simply made errors in bills that were picked up and corrected in the House. Of course, it never worked the other way around, with the Senate correcting errors made in the House. (Wink, wink.)
Beyond simple errors, the two chambers often had different views of legislation, different ideas, different ways of approaching the same problem. In those cases, conference committees were formed, the differences resolved (most of the time), and compromises made. The result was usually better legislation.
In those rare cases where the differences could not be resolved, bills died and were left for consideration another time — not necessarily a bad result. Frankly, I often wondered how Nebraska gets along with its unicameral legislature!
There is another reason Margolis’ proposal should be rejected, even though it could be implemented without a constitutional amendment. He proposes to raise the salaries of legislators to $50,000 per year or so. And he is not alone in making this suggestion, as others, including some legislators, have also done so.
But this runs two risks, because paying a full-time salary means that being a legislator is also a full-time job. As such, one could expect the Legislature to be in session nearly all the time, as in states like New York and California. That is an idea that, frankly, frightens me.
Even worse, when the “profession” of legislating is the source of a person’s income, that person may do unwelcome things in order to retain that person’s seat. That could include violation of campaign finance laws or even outright financial wrongdoing. Just look at New York’s recent lieutenant governor and speaker of the House.
Vermont’s citizen legislature has worked well. It is a place where, as Gov. Dick Snelling reminded us, people serve for a time and then return to their regular endeavors. Let’s keep it that way.
