Bad idea–shrinking the legislature
Recently there have been a rash of letters to the editor calling for shrinking the Minnesota legislature.
Sure, we need ways to cut back in these tight times. But the amount of savings gained by having fewer representatives is miniscule in the context of multi-billion dollar budgets.
So then the question becomes will fewer legislators result in better government? I would argue no.
The fewer legislators we have, the more power professional lobbyists have, the harder it is for an average citizen to have a meeting with his representative, and the more campaigns will be carried out in the mass media instead of by door-knocking.
We have been compared to California, which has a smaller legislature than us despite a much larger population. Yes, and that is a large part of why California state government sucks.
As with Unicameral, shrinking the legislature is the wrong approach to improving our representation. The tragedy of the Ventura administration is that they pushed Unicameral instead of Instant Runoff Vote. Our state would be much better represented had IRV passed a decade ago. The reform we need is the one that allows the majority to prevail.
More on the right size of legislatures:
http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket/2006/11/whats_the_right.html