On Citizen LegislaturesBeing a legislator should not be a profession.
By Kevin Frazier
April 5, 2022
A government of the people is distinct from a government of professional politicians. The former is an accessible body of average Joes and Janes that knows the price of gas and the horrors of flying in coach. The latter is a collection of expert fundraisers masquerading as representatives of the people.
Yet, there’s an effort underway to professionalize “citizen legislatures” in states such as Oregon by drastically increasing legislature pay. That is a mistake. Politics, especially at the local level, were never meant to be a profession. Reversing that trend means tackling head on efforts to make state legislators even more inaccessible.
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The pursuit of elected office has become a lifelong slog for millennials and Gen Z. They avoid posting to social media for fear of creating a digital skeleton in their closet. They cozy up to current elected officials and work as summer interns, getting paid with pizza and the occasional invite to a fancy fundraiser. They think incessantly about what coalition will vote them into office and base their community engagement off of activities likely to grab the attention of probable voters.
I know this because I was in their shoes. I thought that to add to my family’s legacy of political pursuits, I would need to join the College Democrats, work on every campaign that would have me, and avoid writing anything anywhere that would piss anyone off.
The reality is that this sort of pursuit of elected office lessens the public’s perception of their legislature. Turns out that “the more professional the legislature, the less people approve of it,” according to Peverill Squire and Gary Moncrief, authors of State Legislatures Today: Politics under the Domes. This decrease occurs despite the fact that professional legislatures appear to be more responsive to policy needs.
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Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/on-citizen-legislatures/
