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Article: Who's the boss?(TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS)(most influential in the legislature)
- Article from:
- State Legislatures
- Article date:
- January 1, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 National Conference of State Legislatures. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Who is most influential in the legislature? The ultimate insiders--legislative staff--ought to know. So, in a recent NCSL survey of 1,522 legislative staff across the country, we asked about the influence of various participants in the legislative process. Staff said the majority party leaders are by far the most influential actors in the legislative process. On a scale from one (no influence) to seven (dictates policy), the majority party scores 5.9. Minority party leaders, on the other hand, get a score of 3.0 on the same scale, last among all the participants we asked about.
Also scoring 5.0 or more were the senate, the house, the governor and committee ...