The UnicameralWho really built our little HOUSE on the Prairie? Story by Jean A. Lukesh and Matthew Spencer |
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When the Nebraska Unicameral takes care of business in the George W. Norris Chamber, it stands alone as the nation’s only one-branch legislature. But while the late U.S. senator from McCook has the room in Lincoln’s State Capitol building named in his honor, some historians have left the door open as to who really was the founding father of this unique state governmental body.
After nearly two decades of political struggles, Nebraskan voters in 1934 decided they didn’t need both representatives and senators making laws in their state. Norris was a dogged champion of the Unicameral, but throughout that period there also was another strong voice for change shouting out from Polk County.
The battle for the unicameral in Nebraska began even before World War I. It was 1912. Norton, the former mayor of Osceola now was a state representative, and Congressman Norris soon would begin his 30-year career in the U.S. Senate. Both men were eager warriors on this mission to give the people of Nebraska a voice in the political process.
So it began in 1912, when Norris and Norton both helped Nebraska become one of only 12 states to take part in the first direct presidential primaries. While the rest of the nation still had their presidential candidates chosen by the party bosses, Nebraska voters got to participate in one of the most fascinating presidential primaries in history.
Former President Teddy Roosevelt challenged President William Howard Taft in the Republican primary, and Roosevelt smashed his former friend and secretary of war in nine of the 12 states, including a landslide victory in Nebraska. But Taft’s political machine ruled at the GOP convention, and Roosevelt split away from the GOP to run for president with the Progressive Party, which he called the Bull Moose Party. Norris was part of the Progressive wing and had backed Roosevelt, but he stayed home with the Republicans.
The following year, Norris and Norton both championed the passage of the 17th Amendment, which allowed voters to directly elect their U.S. senators, and Nebraskans used this new voting right in 1913 to put Norris in the U.S. Senate. The other change, that was slower in coming, was the push for a unicameral legislature. Nebraska’s movement was not the first in this country. Two former colonies – Pennsylvania and Georgia and a former republic, Vermont – adopted a unicameral legislature soon after they joined the United States. But by the time Nebraska became a state in 1867, the entire nation had branched off into two-house legislatures.
In 1913, Norton initiated the movement for a unicameral state legislature, which he said would “save time, talk, and money.” Meanwhile, in Washington, Norris was beginning his long crusade to get all the nation’s state legislatures to switch over to the unicameral system. Back in Nebraska, Norton’s crusade would take an amendment to the state constitution as well.
By 1917, a resolution passed, allowing for a state constitutional convention to decide whether to make major changes to the Nebraska government. The next year, voters passed the resolution. In 1919, state Sen. Norton was elected to the Nebraska Constitutional Congress, along with 99 other representatives, including Progressives Addison E. Sheldon of the Nebraska State Historical Society and professor John Senning of the University of Nebraska.
Although many of Norton’s constituents agreed in theory with the unicameral idea, they feared it would not work. Several proposals failed, and then in 1923, a petition to bring the unicameral movement to a vote in the state lost again. Despite these defeats, Norton and Norris pressed on for nearly a dozen years.
When the stock market crashed in 1929 Nebraskans not only faced the hardships of the Great Depression, but the “Dirty Thirties” of the Dust Bowl storms also plagued the prairie lands. Norris and Norton both felt that a unicameral government would drastically cut costs and help Nebraska deal better with this financial crisis.
Norris continued to spearhead the move to a unicameral at the state level and other legislation at the national level. Norton lost his bid for the governor’s campaign, but he battled on for the unicameral with speeches and magazine articles. Norton argued that reducing the legislature to one house would cut the size of the state government and bring the government closer to its citizens.
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Although he was a U.S. senator and not a state senator, Norris made the unicameral petition his major focus. In 1934, he met with other unicameralist leaders to form a Model Legislation Committee to draft the amendment. It was approved, but a petition was still needed and would require at least 57,600 signatures just to get on the ballot. Petition circulators received 5 cents for every name and a corresponding signature. Eventually, they collected 95,000 signatures, and the Unicameral amendment was on the 1934 ballot.
Norris hit the road to bring the Unicameral to reality. He used his own money to support his effort and drove all across the state to deliver his message. He was said to have gone through two sets of tires and almost wore out his car trying to get the people to listen.
Despite the momentum Norris and Norton had gained, there still were many foes throwing up roadblocks. Those most opposed to the idea of a unicameral government included some politicians, lawyers, bankers, newspapermen, as well as even some farmers and members of special interest groups who feared not having any representation. But surfers on this wave of unicameral change were young people, the clergy, educators and two of the states’ bigger papers, the Lincoln Star and the Hastings Tribune. Although there was fierce opposition, the amendment passed in 1934 by a large majority, winning in 84 of the state’s 93 counties.
“I never made a more complete campaign in Nebraska, or in any other political contest,” Norris said of his unicameral quest.
