September 2002 State Legislatures Magazine: The Legislature Is Like ...

State Legislatures Magazine: September 2002

Editor's Note: This article appeared in the September 2002 issue of NCSL's magazine, State Legislatures. To order copies or to subscribe, contact the marketing department at (303) 830-2200.

The Legislature Is Like...

In response to last September's article looking at that old metaphor about the similarities of making laws and making sausage, readers come up with metaphors of their own.

Last September we asked our readers to respond to an article by Alan Rosenthal that examined the metaphor comparing the legislature to a sausage factory attributed to German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898).

That age-old expression,"There are two things you don't want to see being made-sausage and legislation," has been around a long time. Rosenthal claims that it doesn't apply to today's legislatures. So what does? We asked our readers and here's what they came up with:

"A legislature is like a summer camp. In both settings the participants produce things, learn skills, gossip, ally with kindred spirits, receive letters from home, answer those letters, play tricks on each other, listen to their counselors, occasionally stay up late at night and,when the allotted time has elapsed, return home." -Retired Wisconsin Legislative Staffer Jack Stark

"Trying to keep legislators on board to approve complex legislation is like trying to put cats in a wheelbarrow. When one is appeased, others jump out." -Submitted by Ohio Finance Director Brian M. Perera

"I prefer to think of the legislature as an oriental bazaar: 120 rug merchants in their little stalls, each trying to hawk his own product, curry the favor of constituents and bargain a little better than the guy next door. The leaders are just the ones who understand the needs of the other merchants and can supply them." -Bob Fairbanks, former editor of the California Journal

"Ice fishing is a little bit like lawmaking. Anyone can do it. But not everyone wants to put up with the hassles like the freezing weather for the fisherman or the chilling effect of constant public criticism and cynicism faced by legislators. Both ice fisherman and legislators enjoy the camaraderie, the thrill of the hunt and the good feeling of a great catch. But you spend a whole lot of time sitting around waiting for nothing to happen. When the action finally comes, sometimes you get carp when you're fishing for walleye."-Kerry Niemcek, former legislative aide in Wisconsin and Illinois.

And many of you may remember some of these metaphors that are more generally about politics than just about legislatures.

This one is from James Bryce, an early political scientist, in The American Commonwealth (1888): "There is in the American Government ... a want of unity. ... The Sailors, the helmsman, the engineer, do not seem to have one purpose or obey one will so that instead of making steady way the vessel may pursue a devious or zigzag course, and sometimes merely turn round and round in the water."

And this graphic image is from G.K. Chesterton as quoted by Gary Wills at NCSL's 2001 Annual Meeting: "Democracy is like blowing your nose. You may not do it well, but it's something you ought to do yourself."