An editorial
Session Limits
It
is our fond but not certain hope that by the time you read this issue
of the magazine, the General Assembly will have adopted a budget,
agreed on a redistricting plan and accomplished one other important piece of
business before adjourning: agreeing to allow voters to consider
amending the state constitution to impose a limit on how long the
legislature can remain in session.
Or as you read this the 170 legislators may still be sitting in
Raleigh, getting paid but not accomplishing a lot, just as they have
done for the past 33 weeks and counting. The session that convened on
a cold winter’s day on Jan. 24, continued through the pleasant
spring and which was supposed to end during the second week of summer
on June 30, officially became the longest session on record when
lawmakers remained in session as Labor Day approached on Aug. 25. That
surpassed the previous record set in 1989. One senator quipped that
legislators had been camped out in Raleigh so long their clothes had
gone out of style.
According to the Council of State Governments in Washington, 37 states
have constitutional or statutory limits on the number of days their
legislatures can remain in session. Most impose a maximum number of
days the legislature can meet; some have dates the legislature must
adjourn by and a few limit the number of days legislators can receive
per diem expense money.
All of our neighboring states have session limits. Virginia allows its
legislature to meet for 30 days in odd-numbered years and for 60 days
in even-numbered years. Tennessee limits pay and per diem allowances
to 90 legislative days. South Carolina’s legislature must adjourn by
the first Thursday in June. Georgia is limited to 40 legislative days
every year. The Texas legislature meets for six months every other
year.
The state Senate has passed session limits legislation five times in
recent years, including twice this year. Up to now the bills all have
died in the House. If that pattern holds, NCCBI will work to build
grassroots support for the concept in the runup to next year’s short
session.
NCCBI has advocated session limits for many years and for several good
reasons. Chiefly we’re worried that North Carolina is losing, or
perhaps may already have lost, the valued concept of our citizen
legislature. People who have jobs and businesses to run simply
aren’t willing to be away from home six months of the year.
Political commentators have been quoted on several occasions as saying
that if session limits ever got on the ballot it would pass with 70 or
80 percent approval. Come November, perhaps it will. -- Steve Tuttle
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