Reliable research: nonpartisan legislative service bureaus keep lawmakers informed--and offer a little historic perspective, too.

• Author: Boulard, Garry

There are few commodities more valuable to a legislature than professional, nonpartisan research. And some institutional memory doesn't hurt either.

Those needs gave birth to legislative service agencies that provide legislators on both sides of the aisle with research staffs unassociated with any political party.

The first such agency was established in Kansas in 1933 and by the 1960s they had spread to a majority of states.

"Its key importance was in giving the legislature an independent source of information, so that it was not completely dependent on the executive branch or some other source," says William T. Pound executive director of NCSL. "It also gave the legislature an ability to work and study issues when it's not in formal session."

The agencies prove their worth in a variety of ways. Lorne Malkiewich, director of the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau, says when the legislature announces a budget deal, that means the fiscal analysis division of the agency has helped legislators reach that point. When legislators must push bills out of committee that means the research division has "provided the assistance for the committee chairs that allowed them to finish on time." It also means the counsel's legal division has "drafted the necessary amendments in a ridiculously short amount of time."

Along with the need for information, many legislative leaders also thought it would be a good idea if their legislative service bureaus were not aligned with any one party.

"Of course the members could be very partisan and there could also even be some partisan staff," says Gerald Wright, an Indiana University professor of political science who studies state legislatures.

"But the idea was that if you had certain service functions performed by a professional staff removed from partisanship, you would be moving in the direction of making those same services, as well as the legislature itself, stronger."

NONPARTISAN FOCUS

When staffers for the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau recently met with new members of the Legislature elected in November, the conversation quickly centered on the nonpartisan nature of the bureau's services and how all requests for information from lawmakers are regarded as confidential.

"In a world that many say is increasingly partisan we make a point of letting new members know right away that this bureau is anything but," says Malkiewich.

"And with a citizen legislature like ours this is particularly important," he says. New legislators are "confronted with something like 900 lobbyists who may very well tell them that some bill is either the greatest in the world or the worst in the world. And that has to be confusing."

Pound agrees that the "nonpartisan status helps the agencies serve as a source of information and assistance to the legislature as an institution and not a particular...