The United States of Nebraska: Are Bicameral State Legislatures Necessary and Could Unicameralism Serve Other States Well

Abstract

While the political science literature has addressed the general philosophical debate of unicameralism vs. bicameralism (see, for example Riker 1992), it has left the more practical discussion of unicameral legislative structure for state governments, for the most part, alone. Political science discussion has tended to focus, though not exclusively, on the benefits of bicameralism in national legislatures. Some discussion of unicameralism has appeared in legal journals (for example Ross 2010), and from time to time in local periodicals as reformers have reanimated the debate in various U.S. state government reform efforts. Alaska and Minnesota are two such states where the issue was part of the discussion about reforms of state government and, in Alaska, considered by a state constitutional convention. Of course, there is the state of Nebraska, which still stands, since 1934,1 as the only state with a unicameral legislature. Some may argue that the debate is settled and bicameralism is the appropriate legislative form, while others will point to the predominance of unicameral legislatures in all forms of local governments as evidence that unicameral governance is a more effective and efficient structural choice. In this paper, which is the development of a larger treatment of the issue, I revisit the debate and argue that some states may find the unicameral approach a better choice.