Outsiders and the Amateur Legislature: A Case Study of Legislative Politics

Political scientists have concentrated their analyses on the United States Congress and legislatures in the larger states, while developing a literature rich in insight on legislative institutions. But this literature has often overlooked that most typical, albeit declining, legislative phenomena, the amateur or citizens legislatures which are found in the smaller and more rural states. The defining difference between these two types of legislative institutions, i.e., between the "professionalized” Congress, California legislature, and the amateur Rhode Island or Arkansas General Assemblies, is that in the one legislators "legislate" for a living while in the other members serve part-time and draw their principal paychecks elsewhere.