Unicameral Results

"Every professional lobbyist, every professional politician and every representative of greed and monopoly is hoping and praying that your work will be a failure. . . . Your constituents do not expect perfection. They know that it is human to err, but they do expect and have a right to expect absolute honesty, unlimited courage and a reasonable degree of efficiency and wisdom. . . . From now on Nebraska has a right to expect a business administration."

With these glowing words last January, Nebraska's grand old Senator George William Norris inaugurated the first session of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature which he had brought into being (TIME, Jan. 11). As that session drew to a close students of government, though granting that a four-month trial was no fair test, were nonetheless interested in surveying its results. These were not spectacular.

George Norris thought one small, carefully-selected, well-paid body, its members few enough to feel individually responsible, would offer smaller chance for buck-passing and lobbying than the old Senate & House. Too wise last week to be disillusioned so soon, he had reason to be disappointed. Last January he asked only one favor of the new Legislature: that it forward his pet scheme of a nation-wide system of TVAs by voting to link Nebraska's three big hydroelectric systems. A bill to accomplish that object died-in committee, killed by a deal between its friends and foes. That has led to a widespread suspicion that with only 43 legislators now to be persuaded instead of 133, the new Legislature is perhaps even more easily influenced than the old. Governor Cochran's legislative spokesman and the session's outstanding member, 35-year-old Charles Albert Dafoe of Tecumseh (fourth cousin of the Dionne Quintuplets' Doctor) observed last week: "It remains to be seen whether or not a small membership will oe more susceptible to lobbying by special interests. I believe it may be desirable in future to increase the member ship."

Nebraska's legislators voted overwhelmingly last week against a return to the two-chamber system. Most of them are conservative, and no supporters of George Norris. They resolved against President Roosevelt's Supreme Court Plan, rejected the Child Labor Amendment by 35-to-7. Outside of an unemployment compensation bill, they showed small concern for Labor and the masses--small political potatoes in agricultural Nebraska. But they extended the State mortgage moratorium law for two more years, kept in step with the New Deal march toward regulated business. Passed were bills laying down price-fixing "fair trade" rules, creating an NRA-like code for automobile dealers, giving the State Railway Commission jurisdiction over trucking, providing State regulation of itinerant merchants and gasoline transporters. The Unicam chiefly distinguished itself from other State Legislatures in enacting only one freak statute: a section in a bill providing for licensing of undertakers which empowers a governing board to suspend any licensee who uses profane language in the presence of the dead.

One goal of the unicameral system is economy. Though legislators are now better paid, this year's session was expected to cost Nebraska taxpayers about $140,000, against $202,593 for the last regular two-house session.

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