The Reform of State Legislatures and the Changing Character of Representation - Hardcover

This is a discussion of the health of representative government in America today through an analysis of the contemporary character of state legislatures. During the last 20 years the states have undergone a major transformation as legislatures have come to resemble more and more the U.S. Congress. Now the sort of problems that plague Congress also plague the states. As professional politicians prosper, representative government suffers. Contents: Representation; Federalism; The Transformation of State Legislatures; The Changing of the Legislature in Four States: The Massachusetts General Court and the Commonwealth's Political Crisis, Jeffrey Leigh Sedgwick; The Pennsylvania General Assembly-The House of Ill Repute Revisited, Charles E. Greenawalt, II and G. Terry Madonna; California: The Not-So-Golden State Legislature, Sherry Jeffe; The New Scalawags: How the South Carolina Legislature Really Works, Richard Moore; Tables; Reforming State Legislatures. Co-published with the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives.

Jeffrey L. Sedgwick is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. G. Terry Madonna, Ph.D. is Professor of History at Millersville University and Director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at the University. Sherry Bebitch Jeffe is Senior Associate at the Claremont Graduate School Center for Politics and Policy, in Claremont, California. Richard Moore is a free-lance journalist and political correspondent who resides in Charleston, South Carolina.