The history of us.

• Author: Kurtz, Karl T.
• Position: NCSL: The First 25 Years - Includes related articles on NCSL trivia - National Conference of State Legislatures

NCSL was founded in the conviction that legislative service is one of democracy's worthiest pursuits. In 25 years it has grown to be the preeminent organization dedicated to serving state lawmakers and staffs.

"If NCSL didn't exist, we would have to invent it" is a phrase we hear often. So who did "invent" NCSL? How has it changed? What are the milestones in its 25-year history? How has NCSL become "the forum for America's ideas"?

In the early 1970s, there were three competing national organizations for state legislators. The National Legislative Conference was founded by a group of legislative service agency directors in 1948 to promote the coordination of research and exchange of ideas about legislative procedures, organization and services. Working as a wing of the Council of State Governments, NLC remained largely a staff organization until the mid-1950s, when legislators began to participate and assume leadership roles.

Legislative leaders from some of the larger states formed the National Conference of State Legislative Leaders in 1959. They felt that the Council of State Governments was dominated by governors and the National Legislative Conference by staff. They wanted to focus on the role of legislative leaders and to create an organization to rival the National Governors' Association.

Rank and file legislators reacted to the formation of the leaders' conference by establishing the National Society of State Legislators in the early 1960s. The society was a relatively small organization, but had particularly effective relations with an association of private sector leaders who were committed to the improvement of state legislatures.

In 1970-71 the three organizations, with the help of the Citizens Conference on State Legislatures (a private, non-profit organization committed to legislative improvement), discussed a possible merger. These negotiations eventually bogged down, but did result in greater cooperation among the three organizations, especially in the area of federal representation in Washington, D.C. Merger talks revived in 1973-74 under the leadership of Connecticut Speaker William Ratchford, Ohio Speaker Charles Kurfess, Pennsylvania Speaker Herbert Fineman, Florida Representative George Firestone, Tennessee Representative Tom Jensen and staffers William Snodgrass of Tennessee and George McManus of Pennsylvania.

These leaders commissioned the Eagleton Institute of Politics under the direction of Alan Rosenthal to survey legislators and staff about the need for a single national organization and to make recommendations about the structure of a merged organization.

In August 1974 the National Legislative Conference and the National Society of State Legislators met in Albuquerque, along with the executive committee of the National Conference of State Legislative Leaders. The three entities voted to dissolve their organizations and form the National Conference of State Legislatures effective Jan. 1, 1975. Speaker Kurfess characterized the merger as "the most important step we can take to convince the nation of the strength and the quality of state legislatures."

Crucial to the success of the merger was the support of the Council of State Governments, which granted $500,000 to the new organization to support its first six months of operations until it could obtain its own funds from state appropriations. The Council of State Governments was the home of four regional organizations of state legislators, and this arrangement continued after the merger of the national organizations.

The structure of NCSL today is a direct result of the key issues and compromises in the merger negotiations of 1975. During the final stages, Maryland Senate President Pro Tem Steny Hoyer (now a member of Congress) argued effectively that the most fundamental powers of the organization should reside in the annual meeting - the largest and most democratic forum of the organization. As a result, annual meeting participants must approve the NCSL budget, review its annual audit, elect its officers and executive committee, and adopt all policy positions. Initial NCSL annual meetings drew 2,000 to 2,500 participants. Attendance at the 1979 event in San Francisco jumped to over 4,000, and participation of 6,000 legislators, legislative staff, private sector and families has become routine in the 1990s.

Each of the original groups left legacies still present in the structure of NCSL today. Legislative leaders were concerned that leaders play a key role in the new organization, so the bylaws specified that the president and at least 10 members of the executive committee be legislative leaders. NCSL regularly conducts seminars and produces publications specifically for leaders and maintains a Leaders' Center to respond to their needs.

The National Legislative Conference played a critical role in supporting the communication and professional development needs of legislative staff, and these services were continued and expanded under NCSL. Three of the seven NCSL officers are staff, and legislative staff are represented on the executive committee in a ratio of two legislators to one staff person. The original NCSL executive committee of 34 members has grown to 60, but the 2:1 legislator-staff ratio has remained constant. NCSL has 10 very active professional societies of legislative staff...