Turnover at the Top.

• Author: Rhyme, Nancy
• Position: Brief Article

Leadership changes are nothing new for legislatures, but some states are losing whole teams in both houses.

Change is in the wind for legislative leadership across the country. While many of the leaders in the 18 term-limited states will be forced to retire, significant leadership changes will take place in other states as well.

And although leaders are often believed to be legislators with the most longevity, that is not the case. In fact, most leaders do not stay in their positions longer than five years. Between 1990 and 1997, 86 percent of senate presidents, house speakers and majority and minority leaders changed.

Right now, there are at least 16 speakers of the house and 12 senate presidents who will retire, be ousted by term limits or who have decided to seek other offices. In 10 states (Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Wyoming) both the senate president or president pro tem and speaker will change. Five House chambers--Arizona, Arkansas, Montana, Oregon and South Dakota--will lose three of their top leaders. Arkansas, Colorado and Maine will have new leaders in the top three spots in the Senate.

Although Florida's term limits go into effect this year for everyone in the House elected in or before 1992, Speaker John Thrasher and Democratic Leader Les Miller will be leaving their posts before the limits hit them, as will Senate President Toni Jennings. That's because Florida uses a rotation system for its speaker and president so, with or without term limits, every two years there is a new speaker and usually a new Senate president. This year, however, speaker designee Tom Feeney will not only be new to his position, but will also contend with at least 55 new House members.

Senator John McKay, the majority party designee, will contend with a similar situation--at least 11 members of the Senate will be new.

Big changes also are in store in Kansas. The majority leadership in the Senate and a number of veteran members will retire. Senate President Dick Bond, Vice President Alicia Salisbury, Majority Leader Tim Emert and assistant leaders Senator Ben Vidricksen and Senator Pat Ranson are leaving. On the House side, Speaker Robin Jennison is retiring. Capitol observers say all of this will make for an interesting reorganization session in December.

Colorado will again lose five of its six top leaders. Going into the 1998 election all of the leaders fell under the restrictions of...