QUEST FOR SUSTAINABLE LEGISLATIVE MODEL FOR STATE LEGISLATURE: FULL OR PART TIME?

olaosebikan Olajuwon

July 29, 2025

There are variants of legislative designs and models worldwide. Any type of representative model or legislative design adopted by a given political system is reflective of its constitutional arrangements and political culture. No two democratic systems are same, though there could be similarities and comparisons between the systems.

Constitutional architects of old and emerging democracies have framed their legislative systems in a manner that suits their peculiarities.

The US legislature, is characterized with marked structural and operational differences. For instance, while drafters of the constitution of the United States of America never prescribed that the Congress operate a bicameral and full-time legislature, the constitution also does not constrain or limit the 50 states of the federation to any congressional model of legislative practice. Depending on their demography and urbanization, states are allowed to design their own legislative models. This explains why some states in the US practice full-time legislature while the rest are either part-time or hybrid legislatures. More so, the fluidity of the US federal constitution further underlines why Nebraska chooses to be the only unicameral legislature. The beauty of the U.S Constitution is in its simplicity. It is only 4,440 words, the shortest written constitution of any major government

Defining a full time legislature

A full-time legislature is defined as a legislature that meets throughout the year. A full-time legislature allows adequate time for debates and hearings among legislators and the public, enabling the decision-making process to be more informed, thorough, representative and rational.

Being a legislator goes beyond attending legislative sessions and voting on proposed laws. A full-time State legislator also spends large amount of time assisting constituents, studying state issues during the interim and campaigning for elections.

These activities go on throughout the year. In the US, only 10 states strictly fall into this category. They are:

California
Hawai
Michigan
Illinois
NewYork
Massachusetts
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Alaska
Wisconsin

The legislatures above are called professional legislatures because they meet fulltime, Pay members commensurate salaries and employ adequate staff. Professional legislators generally spend more time on the job because their sessions are longer and their districts larger than the others. As a result, they tend to have more staff and are compensated at a higher rate. For ease of reference, I shall call these legislatures ‘Supreme legislatures’. Members of the legislatures are not permitted by law to seek additional job, because they work full time and are paid handsomely.

Part-time legislatures

Part-time legislatures are those that spend less time on legislative activities in comparison to those legislatures I have categorized above legislatures. The part-time legislatures can be sub-divided into two as superior and super legislatures. Those being referred to as superior are hybrid legislatures. States in this category are said to spend large chunk of their time being legislators, but not as much as those of supreme states. Although their income from legislative work is significant, it’s usually not enough to allow them to make a living without having other sources of income.

Hybrid legislatures have intermediate sized staff and are found in the states with middle population range. The super legislatures, conclusively, are significantly part-time, low paid, small staffed legislatures. Averagely, lawmakers here spend the equivalent of

What lessons should new or emerging legislative institutions in Africa and other nascent democratic systems learn from US models of legislative practice? Should parliaments or legislatures be bicameral and full-time or unicameral and part-time? Or are they better off being hybrid? half the time of a full-time job doing legislative work. The compensation they receive for this work is quite low and requires them to have other sources of income in order to make a living. The legislatures in this category have relatively small staff. They are often called traditional or citizen legislatures and they are most often found in more rural states with the smallest population. The part-time legislatures are:

Superior Legislatures (hybrid)

Alabama
Minnesota
Arizona
Missouri
Arkansas
Nebraska
Colorado
Nevada
Connecticut
New jersey
Delaware
North Carolina
Florida
Oklahoma
Georgia
Oregon
Indiana
South Carolina
Lowa
Tennessee
Kentucky
Texas
Louisiana
Virginia
Maryland
Washington

Super legislatures

Idaho
Montana
Kansas
North Dakota
Maine
South Dakota
Mississippi
Wyoming
New Hampshire

IMPLICATIONS FOR

POST

AUTHORITARIAN, EMERGING DEMOCRACIES

It is lucid from the above that the 50 states in the US designed their legislative models according to the size of their respective populations, economic development, urbanization, financial buoyance and legislative needs. Legislators in the state legislatures are not paid same salaries and do not same hours as others. Structuralisation of the state legislatures is contingent on legislative needs of the people vis a vis the capabilities of the states to pay for the legislative services of the structural and operational differences among the state legislatures notwithstanding, the most pertinent issue concerning their functionality and adequacy is centered on parliamentary power. Parliamentary power refers to the position of the parliament or legislature in the power structure of a country/state and its government branches.

The Parliamentary Power Index (PPI) measures legislative institutional power relative to the executive power. It examines how the legislature balances power with the executive through its institutional mechanisms. The PPI summarily looks at where power actually resides between the legislature and the executive by measuring how effective is the oversight system of the legislative committees. In other words, notwithstanding the legislative institutional model adopted, what is crucial is if the legislature has power over the executive in the following areas: to investigate and replace the executive through impeachment or vote of no confidence); to oversee the police; and if the legislature is immune from dissolution by the executive.

More so, to determine its appropriateness and measure its functionality or institutional autonomy, the legislature should be able to initiate bills in all policy jurisdictions; appropriate government funds (legislate on budget estimates); control resources that finance its internal operations; should have all its members elected and immune from arrest and/or criminal prosecution. Institutional capacity of the legislature is also gauged by its abilities or otherwise to reject appointments to governmental agencies including the judiciary; amend laws and the constitution; to contain a significant highly experienced members; and for the members to be able to seek re-election without any

The foregoing clearly underscores the criticality of the oversight control of the executive by the legislature. In the American studies, findings show that there is remarkable balance of power between the legislatures and the executives, as no state governor is capable of undermining the legislative strength of the legislatures by denying them financial autonomy and or abridging their role to properly screen and control government policies and programmes.

Sadly, legislatures across sub-Saharan Africa and in emerging elsewhere are observed to be generally weak, though becoming somewhat stronger in the current period of partial, fitful democratization. PPI research conducted by Barkan in some post-authoritarian, emerging democracies tremendous improvements in the legislatures of 16 ex-communist countries and in the parliamentary rankings of countries like India, South Africa, Kenya, Iraq, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Of the selected six African countries (Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda), Kenya was adjudged by Barkan as the most developed legislature, categorizing Benin and Ghana as underpaid legislatures and the rest as those with the weakest institutional power parity with the executives.

Although the PPI conducted only made reference to the national legislative institutions of the countries examined, the findings are unarguably symptomatic of the prevailing conditions in the sub regional (state) legislatures of the countries.

NEED FOR STRONG STATE LEGISLATURES: INPUT, OUTPUT AND PROCESS PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

The essence of strong institutional needs of legislatures, especially at the state or sub regional level, is to ensure transparency, accountability and good governance. The performance of the legislatures makes their legislative model or design desirable in their different socio-political milieu.

Whether or not a state legislature is full time or part-time, its desirability and continued acceptance will be a function of its performance from input, output and process perspectives.

By inputs, we mean how much legislatures spend on themselves, how much legislators receive, how many staff lend assistance and how adequate their facilities appear.

By input analysis, legislatures are assessed according to the quantity of the resources they use to function and produce what they do. This is more or less like cost-benefit analysis where one looks at the functionality and relevance of the legislature vis-a-vis cost implications. It is commonsensical that legislators’ and staff salaries, their training costs and the institutional overheads should adequately reflect in the overall performance of the legislature.

In output analysis, we look at the public policy progammes that a legislature is able to fashion out from its activities.

The better the outputs, the better the legislature’s performance. The output must not be merely nominal (only in number) but impactful to be real output. In other words, the number of laws passed or

programmes undertaken by a legislature is not as important as the impacts the said laws or programmes have on the people.

The Process analysis of performance of a legislating model looks at the thoroughness, representativeness, responsibility and rationality of legislative body. Thoroughness is said to exist when the critical aspects of a problem are explored and the major alternatives are considered.

Representativeness is said to exist when the values of contending interests and the public are reflected in the process by which decisions are reached. Responsibility exists when those in power and authority are visible and can be held accountable for the decisions they make. And lastly, rationality is said to exist when solutions devised are logically related to the problems or needs they are supposed to meet.

THE CASE OF NIGERIA

The Nigerian state legislatures comprise 36 administrative state houses. The 36 legislative assemblies are unicameral in contrast to the federal legislature that is bicameral. Section 90 of the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria prescribes that a House of Assembly of a state shall consist of three or four times the number of seats which that State has in the House of Representatives divided in a way to reflect, as far as possible, nearly equal population provided that a House of Assembly shall consist of not less than 24 and not more than 40 members. Section 104 of the constitution requires a State

House of Assembly to sit for a period not less than 181 days in a year. Section 111 of the constitution says that a member of the House of Assembly shall receive such salary and other allowances as the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) may determine.

The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission is a corporate body that occupies a very strategic position in the fiscal administration of the three tiers of Nigeria. RMAFC is charged with approving salaries of political functionaries in the country. However, there have been speculations as to whether or not RMAFC truly fulfills its constitutional mandate of fixing the salaries of political office holders in the legislative arm of Nigerian government. The reason for this speculation is anchored on the belief that Nigerian legislators earn more their contemporaries in wealthier and developed countries.

Nigerian legislators are said to earn certain opaque salaries, unknown to RMAFC, which are backed by the extant laws of the legislative arm of government at both the federal and state levels.

Consequent on the perceived high income being received by Nigerian legislators in comparison to the low income of an average worker in the country, there seems to be unhealthy political competitions among politicians for seats in the legislatures, leading to low retention and high turnover in the legislative arm.

Moreover, the perceived high cost of governance in Nigeria has led to a nuanced recommendation in some quarters that the Nigerian National Assembly should be unicameral like the State Assemblies and that legislators at all levels should be part-time since the constitution requires them to sit only for a period not less than 181 days in a year.

CONCLUSION

Legislative designs and models for state legislatures should reflect individual financial and demographic peculiarities of such states such that the concept of federalism that birthed the state legislatures is fiscalised for optimal use and accelerated development of commonwealths. The message from the US examples is that the ‘lacuna’ in the U.S Constitution is not exploited for selfish or political reasons but for the good of all. Each Nigerian State Assembly should look critically at its peculiarities and adopt the form of legislative design that is good for its people. Such a design or model adopted should be reflective of the legislative needs of the people and appropriate and strong enough to balance power with the executive.

References

1. Barkan Joel. D.: Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies.

2009

2. NCSL, ‘Full and Part-Time Legislatures, June 14, 2017

3. Haisen Liang: Variation in Parliamentary Power: Measurement and Explanation, June 30, 2021

4. Alan Rosenthal: Legislative Performance In the States. The Free Press, 1974.

5. Olaosebikan. E. Olajuwon: Comparative Legislatures. OPPCOM Press, Nigeria, 2016

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