Citizen legislators - alive and well.

• Author: Gordon, Dianna
• Position: Part-time legislators combine lawmaking duties with other vocations - Includes article on Senator Ernie Chambers of Nebraska legislature

The number of lawmakers listing their occupations as full-time legislators increased dramatically between 1976 and 1986, leading some to wonder if the citizen lawmaker was facing extinction. A new study shows they are alive and well, but struggling to balance their work and their legislative duties.

By day, a state senator. By night, a cop working the streets of the inner city. Minneapolis homicide/burglary division Sergeant Pat McGowan spent the last session of the Minnesota Legislature playing the dual roles of state senator and policeman because he refused to allow his partner to work the streets alone at night. He arrived at the Capitol every morning at 7, returned home at 5 that evening, slept from 5 to 9 and was on the street by 10.

Senator McGowan has a lot of company. Delegates, representatives and fellow senators in citizen legislatures across the country play a balancing act each session with jobs, family and the duties of government.

A State Legislatures article in 1986 asked if the citizen legislator was becoming extinct after an NCSL study showed an 8 percent increase in the number of legislators who listed their jobs as full-time lawmakers. Three percent of lawmakers nationwide listed themselves as full-time legislators in 1976. That number grew to 11 percent in 1986 and 15 percent in 1993, according to a new NCSL study.

The percentages have grown with the transformation of some legislatures to full-time and year-around--a movement that began in the late '70s--in such states as Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio.

And the which-is-better-citizen-vs.-career-legislature debate began at the same time when those legislatures decided that--because of the increasing complexity of society and the laws it seemed to require--state government was fast requiring full-time attention.

Although the number of career legislators showed impressive growth, particularly between 1976 and 1983, 85 percent of the nation's state lawmakers still combine legislative service with another vocation.

Frenetic Lifestyle

The life of a citizen legislator is not one of any particular leisure, as McGowan can attest. So can Representative Bob Maddox of Connecticut.

Numismatist Maddox is owner of two coin shops and works as a part-time sales associate at Macy's. Running his own business and Macy's flexible scheduling allow him to devote time to the General Assembly, too.

The schedule may become hectic, but Maddox likes it that way. He believes that a danger for a full-time career legislator is "they sometimes lose touch." And he draws on his own experiences as a businessman, as well as employee of a large corporation doing business in the state of Connecticut, as litmus tests for the laws he passes as a legislator.

"We--the accountants, tradespeople, housewives, retired people, students--who are in the legislature represent society. When it goes to developing public policy and passing laws, we represent the society they will affect," he says.

For some citizen legislators, the skills learned in their professions are translated to the statehouse floor. "You learn when to insist, when to bend and when to compromise," notes horse trainer Cheryl Rivers of Vermont. Though she's talking about training Morgans, she laughs and adds that those same skills come in handy in her job as state senator.

On a muggy Maryland summer morning, state Delegate Marsha Perry zips up her...