By Rep. Christopher W. Babbidge
    I received a Christmas card from a friend and fellow legislator who had penned in, beside the holiday greetings, the note “Thanks for your efforts to reduce the size of the legislature.”  I thought it interesting that of all the bills I proposed and worked for, this person chose this bill for which to thank me, a bill which, in the end, failed.
    Last year, as budget shortfalls have required legislative decisions with difficult consequences to some Maine citizens, I thought it appropriate that the legislature demonstrate some belt-tightening, not just on the state agencies it oversees, but on itself.  So I wrote and proposed a constitutional amendment to reduce the size of the Maine Legislature.
    Quixotic idea, you’re thinking?  True, proposals of this sort never get far. When I introduced the bill before the state government committee, the questions following my testimony were pointed and direct. Later, at work session when the vote was taken and the hands went up, the bill passed with a 9-4 majority ought-to-pass report, an historic event in itself.  Later, it would pass the senate under the hammer.  But when it came to the Maine House of Representatives last June, it was voted down.
    Lawmakers often speak of their victories, and I’ve shared a few, so why do I share the story of a defeat?  Perhaps to share that, in addition to the honor and prestige of representing our constituents, we often share the frustration of objectives unrealized. Also, I think, like making Jerusalem an international city, the participants may be too close to the problem to recognize a common sense alternative.
    My bill, L.D. 1718, proposed a change in the size of the Maine Legislature by reducing the number of senators from 35 to 33 and the number of representatives from 151 to 132.  The total number of voting state legislators would be reduced from 186 to 165, a reduction of 21 positions.
    Because this requires a change in the Maine Constitution, after passage by a supermajority by both houses of this legislature, it would go to the people for their approval.
Maine’s legislature is tied for sixth largest in the country, while our population is ranked 40th in the country.  New England has had large legislatures since the days of colonial assemblies.
     Regarding the nation’s state houses of representatives, the national average is 108 members.  Only five states have more representatives than Maine:  they are New Hampshire with 400, Pennsylvania with 203, Georgia with 180, Missouri with 163 and Massachusetts with 160.  Maine’s House is 40 percent larger than the national average. The reduction I asked for was 12 percent.
    Of the more than 5,400 lower house members across the country, house members represent less than 10,000 constituents in only five states.  At the time my proposal would be implemented, each of Maine’s 132 representatives would have an additional 1,300 people to reach a total of 10,400 per district.  The national average is 54,000 constituents per district.
    Unlike some of my colleagues, I don’t believe in reducing the size of the legislature just for the sake of making it smaller. But if we can save money, make organizational improvements, send a message to the electorate, and maintain enough numbers to salvage the virtue of easy citizen access to legislators, then I say do it.
    The organizational improvements I speak of would stem from alignment of house and senate districts.  Currently redistricting costs about a half million dollars every 10 years, and the two houses are done separately, with house and senate boundary lines totally independent of each other.  My proposal would be to redistrict only the house, with every four house districts becoming a senate district.  This would make it easier for senators and representatives to work together and for the same constituency.
    Rather than costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement this in the next legislature, my proposal was to implement this at the regular time after the next census.
    That also takes partisan politics out of decision, as calculations to protect individual members or a political party are removed.
    The final house vote was 82 against my reduction bill, 60 in favor.  I had support of just 51 percent of the democrats and, also disappointing, only 28 percent of the republicans who voted.  I was unaware of any overt partisanship, but as it turned out, the democratic leadership voted with me and the republican leadership did not.  I was disappointed to learn that one democrat and 32 republicans who had voted for reduction in a previous bill voted no this time, favoring no action at all by this legislature rather than voting for this proposal.
    So why didn’t it pass?  
    Some legislators representing rural areas lamented the increase in the size of their districts. I have the good fortune to represent a single town, and I understand that many of my colleagues have geographic challenges just to represent the same number of people that I have. Yet Maine’s districts are less than half the size of the national average, and my suggested increase was minimal.
    Some were reluctant to make any change in the state constitution.  True, it should not be done lightly. But transportation and communication in the 21st century has made campaigning and constituent service much easier than in the 19th century when the number 151 was adopted.
    Some opposed significant reduction on the basis that broad representation and constituent access to state representatives would be severely compromised. But my proposal’s modest changes protect those virtues of democracy while a cost-benefit comparison reveals many advantages.
    Every few years a legislator will propose reduction of the house to 99 legislators. Two weeks before my bill came to the floor, a bill proposed by a fellow democrat, which slashed the house by nearly a third was defeated.  I, too, voted against it. I believe that degree of reduction is too severe for a part-time citizen-legislature. The power of lobbyists, of the governor and of party leadership in the house would be too much enhanced. That brain-drain would likely decrease tough interrogation of lobbyists in committees and reduce effective dissent in party caucuses.  My criticisms would be minimized if, in the 99 example, those were full-time, adequately paid, professional legislators, but that, too, has positives and negatives and is a different debate.
    So my bill to reduce the legislature by 21 positions, 19 of them in the house, was the last opportunity in the session to cut the size of the legislature.  It would provide organizational improvement through house-senate alignment of districts and would save 21 salaries, expense allowances and insurances.  And it would let Maine people know that the legislature is willing to share in the belt-tightening that it is forced to apply to others.  And finally, the people of Maine would get to vote to decide if they wanted this change in their state constitution.  
    But, in the first session of this 123rd Legislature, it was not to be.  More than two thousand plus bills get printed each term, and the sponsors experience defeat more often than victory.  The process to pass legislation, and especially to change the constitution, is a difficult one, and the founders of American democracy intended it that way.
    Christopher W. Babbidge is a social studies teacher at Kennebunk High School and state representative for House District 141, part of Kennebunk.