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Pros And Cons Of Having A Unicameral Legislature In Nebraska

516 Words3 Pages

Torin Russell-Weddington
Mrs. Quaden
Civics
10 December 2017
Writing Activity 14 Nebraska did not always have a unicameral legislature, the idea of developing a unicameral legislature was started with the founding fathers, however in order to best suit the demands of all the states when ratifying the Constitution they decided that Congress would consist of two houses. The idea of having a unicameral legislature in Nebraska started in the era of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and it was Senator George Norris that started passionately campaigning for it. Senator George Norris was a New Deal Republican who believed that having a two house Congress was an outdated and inefficient system that needed to be remedied. Senator Norris believed that since the United States was built upon the ideal of their being only one class of people, and that the legislative branch of government should reflect that belief. There were doubts that were raised about whether or not having a unicameral legislature would keep the checks and balances intact and that the legislative body would not become …show more content…

The costs were not the only things that went down in between the different legislature setups, the amount of members decreased almost seventy percent, from 133 members in the bicameral legislature to 43 members in the unicameral legislature. There were many positive benefits that Nebraska experienced after instating a unicameral legislature, for example the last meeting of the bicameral legislature lasted 110 days, costed $202,593, and passed 192 bills. The statistics of the first meeting of the unicameral legislature showed that the decision for instating a new legislature was a good one. During the first meeting of the unicameral legislature they passed 214 bills, costed $103,445, and ran for only 98

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