LEGISLATIVE BODIES

Because of our legal background, it might seem to us that most legislators are attorneys. That is not the case! A recent data survey for 2009 published by the National Conference of State Legislatures identified the educational background of the legislators in the individual states and it appears that being an attorney is not the dominant professional degree for legislators. Instead, holding a bachelor’s degree outnumbered law degrees almost two-to-one. Following those with only BAs were those legislators earning master’s degrees. Finally, legislators with JDs came in third in line. The survey also broke out those who attained only a high school degree and those who took some college courses.

The NCSL survey reported that the state with the highest percentage of bachelor’s degrees in its legislature was Tennessee (45.04%). The state with the highest percentage of master’s degrees was Oregon (32.95%).

Looking at the population of attorneys in the state legislatures, the state with the lowest percentage of JDs was Delaware (3.28%) followed closely by Montana (3.33%) and New Hampshire (3.31%). The state with the highest percentage of attorneys in its legislature was Ohio (32.06%).

Individual states vary, so let’s look at ten states legislators’ education levels limited to bachelor’s, master’s, and JD degrees:

• Alabama: The legislature in Montgomery is made up of 38.41% BAs, 25.36% MAs, and 17.39% JDs.
• California: BAs make up 36.13%, MAs make up 23.53%, and JDs make up 21.01% of the legislature in Sacramento.
• Colorado: At the Denver Capitol, 22% are BAs, 21% are MAs, and 12% are JDs
• Georgia: The state legislature in Atlanta is made up of 41.20% BAs, 10.30% MAs, and 15.45% JDs.
• Illinois: The legislature in Springfield is made up of 32.20% with BAs, 22.60% with MAs, and 19.21% with JDs.
• Louisiana: BAs make up 34.51%, MAs make up 10.56%, and JDs make up 26.76% of the Baton Rouge legislature.
• New York: The Albany legislature is made up of 31.75% with BAs, 21.80% with MAs, and 28.44% with JDs.
• Ohio: At the Columbus Capitol, 29.01% hold a BA, 13.74% hold a MA, and 32.06% hold a JD.
• Texas: The legislature in Austin is made up of 37.02% BAs, 12.15% MAs, and 30.94% JDs.
• Washington: The Olympia Capitol’s legislature is made up of 38.10% BAs, 23.13% MAs, and 6.80% JDs.

LEGISLATIVE CALENDARS

Working with individual states to provide legislative histories compels us at LIS to become familiar with different legislative sessions’ timetables. California, which just ended its current session at the end of August and is awaiting Governor Schwarzenegger’s approval of enrolled bills, is one of the last states to wrap up its regular session in 2010. Other states adjourned their regular sessions sometime in March, such as Idaho, Indiana, Utah, and Virginia, or in April, such as Alaska, Florida, Hawaii and Maryland. These early adjournments do not mean that legislative business is finished because various states legislatures will continue to meet throughout the year and special sessions can be called to address specific topics, from budget, finance reform, education and transportation. In California, there were eight extraordinary legislative sessions called to address specific issues, including the state budget, during the 2009 – 2010 legislative session.

LAST LEGISLATIVE DAY FOR 2010:

Tomorrow, August 31st, is the last day for any bill in the current session of the California Legislature to be passed. Thursday, September 30th, is the last day for Governor Schwarzenegger to sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature. So, we thought we’d highlight a few the California bills being considered while the state’s late budget continues to be hammered out on this 61st day of the state budget standoff:

• AB 194: Carried by A/Ms Alberto Torrico and Art Torres, this bill limits the amount of compensation earnable that a public employee may have included in calculating a retirement benefit.
• SB 1475: Authored by Sen. Joe Simitian, this bill increases the penalties for using cell pones or texting while driving and prohibits the use of handheld cell phones for conversing or texting while riding a bicycle.
• AB 1998: Carried by A/M Julia Brownley as lead author, this bill would, as of January 1, 2010, prohibit specified stores from offering single-use plastic bags and require these stores to charge the consumer for paper bags.
• AB 2578: This bill by A/Ms Dave Jones and Mike Feuer would require health care service plans and health insurers to apply for prior approval of proposed rate increases, under specified conditions, imposes on the DMHC and CDI specific rate review criteria, timelines and hearing requirements, and also provides that any proposed rate not acted upon by DMHC or CDI on its own discretion within 60 days is deemed approved.
• SB 220: Sen. Leland Yee authored this bill to require a health care service plan contracts or health insurance policies to cover specified tobacco cessation treatments.
• AB 302: Introduced by A/M Jim Beall, this bill would require specified mental health facilities must report to the DOJ exclusively by electronic means when a person is admitted to that facility either because the person was found to be a danger to themselves or others, or was certified for intensive treatment for a mental disorder.
• AB 1810: Carried by A/M Mike Feuer, this bill provides that firearms reporting and record retention requirements that currently apply only to handguns also apply to long guns.
• AB 1934, AB 2668, and AB 2324: these different bills would variously prohibit the open carrying of a loaded or unloaded specified weapon in public or at the State Capitol and legislative buildings or in public transit facilities.

We’ll be looking at enacted bills in October to produce our annual compendium of notable legislation later in the fall.

States and their Budgets

While observing that California’s state legislature missed its June 15th state budget deadline once again, you might wonder how other states are fairing with their budgets during these difficult economic times. Fiscal year 2010 will end on June 30th in 46 states. Except for Vermont, every state has some sort of balanced-budget law. We at LIS have researched our share of budget bills and know that the legislative process underlying these bills, whether state or federal, is complicated by issues involving politics, mandates, and economic realities, just to name a few. Below, we point out some of current economic realities affecting states’ budget bills this year.

The Bad News: In general, other states budgets are not fairing well. The main factors for the gaps in the 2010 state budgets are deteriorating revenues, shortfalls from prior budget years, and declining federal aid to states [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds are mostly gone]. Also, unemployment remains at high levels for states which will keep state income tax receipts at low levels. Increased demand for Medicaid and future state-wide economic uncertainty will also tax the revenue gaps. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is predicting significant shortfalls in states’ budgets running into the billions of dollars. These billion-dollar-shortfall states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, So. Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Unfortunately, the Center is also predicting that 2011 will be worse unless faster-than-expected recovery occurs given also that there will be less federal money available to close budget gaps. Cuts to state services are the first line of defense to the budget shortfalls burdening the states. For example, there were 42 states that reduced overall wages or laid off state employees, 30 states that cut health care services, 25 states that reduced services to the elderly and disabled, 30 states that cut K-12 education, and 41 states that cut higher education.

The Not-As-Bad News: The Rockefeller Institute challenges the above-noted level of dire news on states budgets, publishing recently it found overall state tax revenues grew by 2.4% in the first quarter of 2010, compared to the same quarter in 2009, and personal income tax revenue increased by 2.7% for the nation. The Institute stated: “This is the first time since the third quarter of 2008 that states are reporting growth in tax collections on a year-over-year basis. Such growth is mostly attributable to revenue growth driven by legislated charges in two states alone – California and New York.” The report noted the realities of the weak economy, observing that state revenues were still significantly below pre-recession levels, and the important April collections from income taxes showed a 7.6 percent year-over-year decline.

First Day of Summer!

Put on a hat, dig those toes in the sand and pick up some fun reading materials – maybe even our quarterly newsletter, Engrossment - Summer of 2010, which is now published up at our website. We cover three states courts using legislative history materials in June and we highlight a few of California’s pending summer bills. During these happy days of summer, your legislature will likely be busy with their state’s budgets . . .

States Consider Protectionist Legislation Against Health Care

Federal and State Health Care Legislation: As you know, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was enacted on March 23, 2010. There are now approximately 39 states proposing legislation to limit, alter or oppose one or more aspects of the federal health reform legislation. A few of these states are:

• Idaho: In mid-March, this state enacted the “Idaho Health Freedom Act, ” to provide that every person within the state “shall be free to choose or decline to choose any mode of securing health care services without penalty,” among its provisions.
• Georgia: On June 2nd, this state enacted SB 411 , the “Healthy Georgians Act of 2010” to provide exemptions from certain unfair trade practices for certain wellness and health promotion programs.
• On March 22nd, Utah enacted a resolution prohibiting any state agency from implementing health reform unless state agencies recommend action or the legislature passes provision.
• Virginia: On March 10th , Virginia passed the following law (will not apply to Medicaid and CHIP coverage): “Health insurance coverage not required. No resident of this Commonwealth, regardless of whether he has or is eligible for health insurance coverage under any policy or program provided by or though his employer, or a plan sponsored by the Commonwealth or the federal government, shall be required to obtain or maintain a policy of individual insurance coverage. No provision of this title shall render a resident of this Commonwealth liable for any penalty, assessment, fee, or fine s a result of his failure to procure or obtain health insurance coverage.”

State Budgets and Health Care

State Budgets and Health Care: With states attempting to close excessive budget gaps, it is not surprising that one avenue for savings will be in health care. The National Conference of State Legislatures has created useful tables showing the actions and proposals by individual states to balance their 2010 budgets with cuts to health care. As you will see, the states are cutting budgets related to both state and federal benefits. While Hawaii’s lawmakers failed to abolish the Hawaii Health Systems Corp., its Disability and Communications Board and its Planning and Development Agency through a combination of revenue measures, budget reductions and federal stimulus money, states such as Connecticut have cut millions from their Department of children and Families, its Department of Social Services, and Department of Developmental Services. Michigan and Ohio cut funding for mental health services while New Jersey decreased the funds available to hospitals by $20 million. The state of Washington enacted budget cuts of $225 million from human services by cutting the basic health plan for the poor and stopping enrollments in the plan, resulting in 40,000 residents losing coverage last July. For 2011 , more cuts are being proposed by state governors, such as Kansas proposing to cut its “Parents as Teachers” program, Maryland proposing to cut $362 million from healthcare and higher education, and North Carolina proposing to impose a hospital or provider tax. Missouri has already cut mental health and social services. Medicaid fees are proposed to be affected also by Missouri, as well as by New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.