Legislators lobby for control over block grants(NCSL Inside)

One of NCSL's most intense lobbying efforts ever focused on the sweeping changes to the nation's welfare system debated by Congress during the summer and fall. Particularly appealing to state legislators and legislative staff has been NCSL's campaign to ensure an effective role for legislatures in managing the proposed new block grants.

Dozens of state legislators and staff worked in August and early September in favor of an amendment offered by U.S. Senator Hank Brown from Colorado that protects state legislatures' authority to appropriate federal money for the new block grants contained in the Senate welfare reform legislation. With roots in the separation of powers arguments of the country's founding, Senator Brown's amendment generated a classic institutional debate. Who should design the new programs? Who should decide how the funds will be spent? Who should legislate - legislatures or governors?

Led by NCSL President Jim Lack and Colorado Senate President Tom Norton, legislators and staff throughout the country worked to make sure that the U.S. Senate answered "Legislatures." Their specific objective was to convince Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, who managed the bill in the Senate, to reverse his initial position that block grant decisions should be left to governors.

Their lobbying in the Senate occurred in two phases. Phase one was during the first week in August while the Senate struggled through hours of floor debate. Numerous legislators - including Kansas Senate President Paul Burke, former Oregon Speaker Larry Campbell, Ohio Senator Richard Finan and many others - called and wrote Senator Dole and their own U.S. senators. These contacts...