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Show Alter State Governments Says Committee Reports Archaic forms of state government are preventing the states from bringing about constructive solutions for the difficult problems of today. The Committee for Economic Development, a group of American businessmen and educators, issued a report July 11 calling for drastic reforms of government at the state level. Under constitutional law, 50 states have absolute authority for the creation and dissolution of their local government, yet 48 states are plagued with geographic boundaries, outmoded structures, inadequate use of resources, political weaknesses and cluttered constitutions. Two primary reasons were associated with the state's hesitancy toward to-ward modernization of obsolete governments. First, the national networks net-works in industry, communications, finance, commerce, labor and transportation trans-portation have impaired the ability of states to handle the consequences. Their resources and geographic jurisdictions are limited to the urgent problems at hand. Second, atiquated tax systems make it hard to finance the state's operations. lems becoming increasingly nationally, nation-ally, regional or metropolitan. Few legislatures are well enough organized or-ganized to discharge their responsibilities. respon-sibilities. Inadequate salaries for members show that some are paid less than legislative doorkeepers or capitol janitors. State constitutions are often too long. Compared with United States Constitution they are often cluttered with large sections of statuary subject matter. Stress should be placed on reporting limitations limi-tations that prevent constructive and executive action. The time is right for drastic reform re-form in the state governments so that the challenging opportunities of the future can be met. Geographic boundaries once set to limit a state's size and jurisdiction jurisdic-tion now create handicaps because of multi-state problems. Rational solutions to major problems cannot can-not be expected to reach just one state, so there is a need for interstate inter-state cooperation. Wider acception of uniform state laws is needed. Since 1945 only seven states, including in-cluding recently admitted Alaska and Hawaii, have adopted new constitutions. Often the legislatures are handicapped by severe constitutional consti-tutional restrictions. For example, 29 legislatures still meet in regular session only once in two years (Utah included). Thirty-one have over 100 members in their lower chambers (Utah has 69). Time limits of 45 to 190 days are imposed im-posed in 33 states. Eleven states deny their governor a second consecutive con-secutive term while 13 others a third (Utah included). The reduction reduc-tion of gubernatorial ability by restriction of terms in office does not allow for authority and responsibility re-sponsibility for development of long range goals, program supervision, super-vision, budgetory preparation and execution and personal management. manage-ment. Few states have done anything any-thing to rationalize the court systems with 41 states electing judges on a partisan ballot. Some states lack resources, yet most have been reluctant to use their powers of taxation. There were 17 states without a broad-based broad-based personal income, 13 without a levy on corporate incomes and eight without a general sales tax in January, 1967. Two party competition needs to be deliberately promoted in every state. In 12 cases more than 80 per cent of all members in 1966 legislatures legis-latures were members of the same political parties. Utah had 15 Democrats Dem-ocrats to 12 Republicans in the Senate with 39 Democrats to 30 Republicans Re-publicans in the House. All, or all but one, governor since 1900 have been members of the same political party in 13 states. Often states are not thought of as the centers of action with prob- |
