Steele: What the legislature should do

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Updated: February 21, 2012 3:58PM

Amidst the several important issues the Indiana Generally Assembly has considered during the current session are a few frivolous ones that really had no chance of passing.

‘Twas ever thus, and the public probably worries too much about vanity proposals like the creationism-in-science-class proposal.

And, the recent whopper by a Fort Wayne representative — declining to vote in favor of honoring that “radical” organization, the Girl Scouts — is more a symptom of legislators having too much time on their hands and over-active minds.

It’s a good sign from the leadership that they’ve cut the session short this year. The legislature certainly wouldn’t accomplish anything significant if it stayed the full term, and minimizing the time for mischief is a welcome decision.

Meanwhile (and speaking of things that will probably never happen), I think one, perhaps counterintuitive, way to get a tighter control over the legislature is to double its size, to 200 members in the House of Representatives and 100 members in the Senate.

That, I think, would bring legislators “closer” to voters. I think it’s safe to say most voters aren’t able to describe the geographic make-up of their House or Senate districts. Politics becomes much more incumbent- and money-dominated in that situation.

The small size of the House and Senate, meanwhile, makes it less likely that diverse groups, not necessarily related to party, can form. Members become beholden to the often short-sighted, or downright obtuse, strategies and tactics of their leaders.

A larger legislature would still be a manageable institution, but would freshen the dynamic in Indianapolis, and push legislators closer to their voters.

Superintendents’ pay

One of the things state legislators are mulling is an effort to make school superintendents’ contracts more “public.”

They’re already completely public, and generally reported on when a contract is approved, but there’s the idea that superintendents are over-compensated, and that that’s because the public doesn’t know what their compensation is.

It’s certainly possible that school boards in general have gotten too generous in their negotiating, and a more attentive public could rein that in. But it’s more likely that apparently high compensation is largely the result of the fact that the supply of superintendents is very small.

The idea that superintendents bewitch school boards into high compensation is convenient, but generally not the case. If the public and its legislators want to compensate superintendents at a lesser level, they need to increase the supply.

The real decision is whether the qualifications for the job should be adjusted, and the supply increased. Having a special public hearing to give cranks the opportunity to complain won’t change anything.