The South's growing pains.

AuthorBoulard, Garry
PositionRacial issues and minorities in South

For Barney Schoby, a 14-year veteran of the Mississippi House of Representatives, the 80-mile drive from his Natchez home to the state Capitol one bright spring morning was more than worthwhile. After several hours of wrangling with fellow House Management Committee members, he walked away with a commitment to hire five black staffers for administrative slots.

"I guess the outside world might look at something like this and say |What's the big deal? So you get jobs for five black people?'" Schoby later reflected. "But to me, every victory, no matter how small, is important. It's all part of a great battle that we can never stop waging."

And indeed, Schoby, who is also chairman of the 22-member black caucus, did score a triumph. With the five new hirees, blacks now make up almost one third of the House's administrative staff, up from just over 25 percent earlier this year. "It's another sign that things are changing," Schoby continued, "that progress, however slow, is being made."

Across the South today, Schoby's experience is being replicated--progress and change have become bywords. Not only are there more minorities and women than ever before serving in state legislatures and working as part of their support staffs, but Republicans have made dramatic inroads in the once solidly Democratic South. They make up 27 percent of the overall total compared to less than 10 percent two decades ago. Blacks account for 14 percent of the southern legislative membership, and women are up to 12 percent.

"Southern state legislatures, as a whole, are vastly changed institutions from just a decade ago," says Abraham Holtzman, professor of political science at North Carolina State University and director of the internship program for the General Assembly. "There is probably no region of the country that has undergone such a dramatic transformation in its legislative bodies. And, for the most part, almost all of the changes have been for the better."

Scholars and southern state legislators say the two biggest changes have come in the areas of professionalism and diversity--and that both were long overdue.

"When I first got here in 1964, not only was there no support staff, but we didn't even have our own offices," says Hunter B. Andrews, majority leader of Virginia's General Assembly. "Our of offices were the desks we had on the floor of the Senate ... You got to know your colleagues real well because you did almost all of your work in the chamber. But there is no way that you could handle the kind of workload we handle today without a full support staff and computers."

Southern legislatures--particularly Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia--are becoming more professional.

Perhaps the biggest reason for the change is the growth of support staffing. Between 1979 and 1988 full-time staffs increased by more than a third. Similarly, the average increase in expenditures for all southern states between 1972 and 1990 was just over 126 percent. In just one state, Florida, this year's budget for the House will top $43 million while the Senate's budget is $28 million--more than twice that of 20 years ago.

Such staff functions as bill drafting, research services and fiscal analysis, combined with the creation of nonpartisan research offices for a variety of legislative committees, have helped to increase the effectiveness of southern state legislatures and to change the image of the southern lawmaker as a sort of hapless hayseed.

"They're a more dedicated and serious bunch today," said John Maginnis, editor of the Louisiana Political Review and the author of two books about Louisiana's legendary governor Edwin Edwards. "The legislatures are generally less wicked places to be these days. Everyone dresses better; they don't all smoke big cigars anymore; and they're more independent than they used to be. The degree of professionalism has definitely improved."

Perhaps the most noticeable change in the southern state legislatures of the 1990s is the steady but slow increase in the number of women and minority members--black legislators have seen their numbers jump from less than 50 in 1971 to 247 this year. Women's membership has gone from 174 to 210 in the past two years alone.

"We are much more inclusive bodies today, and more accepting of every citizen," said John Miller, a 35-year-veteran of the Arkansas House. "It's helped us see problems from a wider variety of views, which is very good too. When I first got elected, this was a kind of closed system, but now we are much more open, more in tune with who the public really is."

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