Morning journal and courier., 1884-02-09
sOnrnaI anS Courier.
SINGLE COPIES TWO GENTS.
Saturday, February 3, 1884.
BIENNIAL SESSIONS.

Biennial sessions amendments are now be.
 fore the legislatures of New York, Massachu-
 setts and Connecticut. Thirty-two States
 already have biennial sessions of the Ieeisla-
 ture, and from most of those States comes
 testimony strongly commendatory of the biennial plan. Thus the secretary of State of Delaware declares that ''the amount of Ieeis- lation is very much less.'' The governor l of Kansas says that the change has had the effect of greatly reducing the amount of legislation" In Florida ''the amount ofIeeis-
 iation has been reduced fully sixty per cent" :" | In Alabama 'fhe reduction of legislation is about one-half;" each biennial session 'doing about as much as had been done at each au- | nual session." In Nevada there is ''a saving of at least one-balf in volume of legislation D The governor of Texas is heartily in favor of the plan, and he thinks that Texas could gst ] along with a session once in four years. He says: "The great advantage of the (biennial) systeK, apart from the saving of expense, is that it gives time for laws to be tried before they are repealed and also tends to prevent excessive legislation. In fact, when we get to be twenty-five years older, my opinion is OA~OS
 even better, as it would increase the care
 with which changes would be made in sys-
 tenn of State laws when once well established,
 and prevent hasty and inconsiderate IegisIa- tion."
 This and much more which might be cited shows that the biennial system has worked well in many of the States. In this State there are those. who, ignoring the experience of other States, profess to believe that if Connecticut should try to get along without annual sessions the result of the experiment would be very disastrous. Their chief argu- ment is that the people retain more of their power when the legislature meets annually. They profess to be really afraid that if we should have biennial sessions the liberties of the people might be encroached upon. We commend to their notice the following from the New York Evening Post: Legislatures in any popular government must meet acsr- tain intervals, but the chief reasons for the original introduction of frequent sessions jealousy and dread of the Executive and con- fdence in the representative body as guar dian of popular rights against it-have long ceased to exist. Nobody, for instance, in NeW York OreaoS tne governor; every body dreads the legislature. In fact, so far from relying upon Major Haggerty and Mir. Husted and their like to protect us against Governor Cleveland, we rely on his veto to protect us against their work, and we elect him with a view to this, and give him good salary and fine house, and g long term, in order that he may save us from as many of their laws as possible. Even the legislatures power over taxes in our States, once relied upon to save the public from the encroachments of the Executive, now often becomes An instrument of oppression and corruption, and nobody wants to see it in operation any oftener than possible.
 What is wanted is less politics, and less and better legislation. Biennial sessions of the Connections legislature would relieve the people of this State of some of the political burden which they now carry, and would certainly result in less Legislation, and prob- ably also in better, for, with less freq uent sessions, more attention would be paid to the character of the members chosen.