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Legislative Staff:
Toward a New Professional Role

By:
John Phelps
Clerk, Florida House of Representatives

ASLCS Home Page

This article is from remarks which were presented by John Phelps at 1999 meetings of staff sections of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Over the past few months it has been my pleasure to travel to meetings of the staff sections of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). These visits have given me some fresh insights into our business. Meeting attendance is at an all-time high and programs are becoming increasingly relevant and valuable. I believe something is building for legislative staff, something important. But before getting to that, let me place it in context.

NCSL was created in 1975, a time when state legislatures were minor players in the fabric of American government. Over the past 30 years there has been a dramatic change. Our legislatures today are increasingly influential at home and in Washington, and our government has begun to return to the state/federal balance intended by its founders.

I believe NCSL is due considerable credit for this transformation. It has worked hard to bring together the resources state legislatures needed to reassert their proper constitutional authority. We are now beginning to see the fruits of that labor.

At the very beginning NCSL recognized that effective legislative staff would be a key to state legislatures realizing their potential. I believe it was at that moment that legislative staff work began taking on the properties of a profession. What are some of these properties?

1. A defined mission serving a critical public purpose;
2. A set of core values;
3. A code of ethics;
4. Self-developed and enforced standards of performance; and
5. Continuing education.

Let me give you an example of how this works in practice.

Those of us in term-limited states have heard for years that staff and lobbyists will soon be running our legislatures. That is nonsense and every legislative staff person knows it. Staff today know where the line is drawn for us. We honor it because doing so conveys respect for the legislature itself and our proper role within it. That doesn't mean we are passive; it just means we know when and under what circumstances to be assertive. It is one of our key professional values. We don't even think about it, we just do it.

Some veteran colleague cared enough to pass along this insight to us. That is what professions do, they pass along their skills and values to the next generation. If we believe our jobs are important enough to do well, then we should be similarly concerned that our successors do them well. If we care about the future of the legislature, we have to care about future legislative staff.

Many of the "old legislative foot soldiers" like me who got in on the early ramping-up of legislative staff are approaching retirement age. It is time for us to acknowledge that much of this work isn't learned at the university. It is learned in the trenches, under fire.

We need to begin devising programs in each of our states so that the young people joining our ranks are given the benefit of our experience and do not become discouraged or overwhelmed. We need to look out for them during those early skirmishes that we know are bound to come.

The first step in this process is to identify their frame of reference. Namely, that new staff know about the legislature what they have been taught by the media. This can be dangerous for them and for us. Dangerous for them because it can threaten their employment, and dangerous for us because when any staff person fails, the credibility of all staff is diminished.

New staff need a more factual perspective. They need to understand a few imperatives.

1. They need to know that legislatures are made up of many fine and decent people, members, staff, and lobbyists alike who often look upon what they do with a kind of reverence, as much a commitment as a career.

This attitude is formed when lawmaking is experienced as a player, in a first-hand, personal way. People so engaged come to realize that for all its complexities and frustrations, there is certain majesty in the democratic process. They come to appreciate that something larger than their narrow interest is at stake. They come to accept the process itself as a thing to be cherished and preserved.

It would be naïve to say that everyone in the business holds this view, but that so many have over the years is remarkable. More so than constitutions, they have been the foundation on which the legislative institution has been built.

2. New staff need to know the legislative process is fairer than they have been led to believe, but not perfect; that conflict over deeply held beliefs always gets personal. Lawmaking is not an Oxford-style debate; it has real consequences for real people. It is disorderly and there will be an occasional fistfight. But when the dust settles the "process" will right itself as it has done for over 200 years.

3. They need to know that legislatures do a much better job than the media would admit and that, for most issues, very responsible policies are developed. Legislatures were never expected to produce perfect laws; they were only expected to achieve the possible within the context of their time.

4. They need to believe in the power of ideas. Obviously, influence matters in politics, but so does solid factual analysis. If it didn't a lot of staff would be out of work. We all know that legislatures make their worst decisions when they act with inadequate information. Our job is to see that never happens. They need to know that a good idea is a good idea, even if it comes from a scoundrel. There is, of course, the corollary that a bad idea is still a bad idea even if it comes from a statesman.

5. They need to know that lawmaking is not about winning or losing, it is about best guesses. It involves taking the facts at hand and making a decision, in the full knowledge that history will likely judge you wrong. That is how our government was intended to work. It was not founded upon fixed ideas as were so many that failed. It was based instead on the commonsense notion that policies will change when experience requires them to. There is not now nor was there ever intended to be a "final word" in lawmaking. It is the genius of our system.

Our federal constitution was born in an era when English empiricism was the ascendant philosophy. John Locke, who deeply influenced our founding fathers, was one of its chief proponents. This philosophy rejected the notion that perfection or absolute truth was possible in earthly matters. That is the principle reason powers were balanced among competing branches. The best all of us in government can do is strive for that ambiguous and shifting notion of the collective good.

6. New staff need to respect a person's right to hold his or her own views. Lobbyists represent people asserting their constitutional right to petition their government. Neither their motives nor anyone else's should be questioned. Staff should be willing to trust that the merits of every proposal will be fairly judged through the twin cauldrons of analysis and debate.

7. They need to know that they don't have to be experts in politics. For most of us, that is not what we were hired to do. That doesn't mean that they should ignore politics. It just means that the politics of our work should not become an obsession.

8. They need to know that there is a line past which staff do not carry an issue. It is the point at which they have to hand the ball to a member and let them carry it. It is necessary to know where that line is drawn and not to step over it. A veteran can help them understand where that line is.

9. They need to know not to personalize outcomes. Their ideas will not always prevail. That doesn't mean that they were wrong. It just means that they need to go on to the next issue. They should be inspired by the knowledge that they will one day be able to point with pride to the statute books and say they had a hand in writing some of those laws.

10. They need to know that the votes are not always as certain as one may think. It is now a truism that special interests control every action of the legislatures. I don't believe it. I think every staff person has seen powerful interests faced down and defeated by the simple testimony of an ordinary citizen. That is how the system is supposed to work.

11. They need to respect the process. It is more important than any bill or any member. All of us are asked how to get around this or that rule or procedure. Usually, there is a way within the rules to address the problem; the questioner simply isn't aware of it. If it is plainly against procedure, we should say so and let that be the end of it.

12. We should encourage new staff to take pride in what they do - not just because it is right, but because one day a person affected by a law will be grateful someone took the time to do a good job crafting it, even though they may never know who that drafter was.

13. New staff need to be prepared for the fact that they will not be trusted immediately. They should not become discouraged when their advice or recommendations are not accepted immediately. They have not failed. It just takes time in this business to build relationships and establish a reputation for good work.

14. They need to be encouraged to speak up for the legislature, not to be silent when it is maligned. As "insiders" they have a special knowledge of how our system works. That knowledge carries with it a special responsibility to speak up for the legislative institution. They need to understand that what they say - good or bad - about the legislature has real impact. They just need to tell the truth. A democracy can handle that.

In conclusion, I would like to make one final observation. We talk a lot about the "Legislative Institution." But what exactly do we mean?

I do not believe the legislative institution is bricks and mortar or some rarefied abstraction. To me it is very real and wherever we do our work it surrounds us like the grandeur of our legislative halls.

It is these and many other things, but most of all, it is the love that each of us holds for this precious gift of democracy and the understanding that our work and our conduct has real consequences for its future.

Over the past thirty years, with increasing and impressive competence, colleagues in NCSL staff sections have built a profession, a profession that is now an important pillar upholding the legislative institution and facilitating its work within a modern republic. It is an obligation we bear with humility and with pride.

When our work is done and we have kept faith with that responsibility, we can take satisfaction in the knowledge that our legislatures, our states, and our nation have been made stronger.

For more information about ASLCS, write or call:

Joan Barilla
National Conference of State Legislatures
7700 East First Place
Denver, CO 80230
Phone: 303/856-1349
FAX: 303/364-7800
E-mail: joan.barilla@ncsl.org