PREFACE
From the moment in 1787 when James Madison laid down his pen and the weary delegates to the Constitutional Convention departed from Philadelphia, there has existed in the United States a natural tension between the national government of the federal union and the still partially sovereign governments of the several states. Almost two centuries after the federal experiment began, the surprising fact is not that power has gradually shifted toward the national end of the balance, but that the states have succeeded in maintaining very considerable measures of independence and authority.
The persistent vitality of the states is derived not only from their roles in the functional work of government (which in recent years have fallen more and more under the influence of the federal bureaucracy) but also from their importance in the national political structure. In an age when armies, economies, religions, cultures, and almost everything else are organized on a national or international basis, the states remain the fundamental units of American politics.
This political significance is due in part to the nature of the federal Constitution. The members of the legislative branch of the national governmentparticularly the senators, but also to a great extent the members of the House of Representativesare elected to represent states, and trace their political interests and loyalties to the state level. Moreover, the institutions of the electoral college and the national party convention make it necessary for every presidential campaign to be built, first and last, around the states. The state house has been a great steppingstone to the White House, and even those presidential candidates who have not launched their campaigns from governors chairs have usually formed their personal organizations from the party structures of their native states.
Of course, what has been is not necessarily a pattern for what will be. The states, as politically powerful units of government, will hardly survive indefinitely if they prove to be of no permanent value to American society. Having assumed a degree of responsibility for most traditional state functionssuch as education, welfare, and public healththe federal government, led by the Supreme Court, has during the past decade begun to deal with a number of problems which are organic to the states themselves. Racial segregation, religious observances in the public schools, malapportionment of state legislatures, all of which have been the subjects for federal court edicts, are not, theoretically at least, problems on which the states are physically incapable of acting. Federal interference on these matters has occurred precisely because of the apparent lethargy of the states.
If both the traditional services and the traditional authority of the states are continually superseded and eroded, the state governments will inevitably be reduced to mere shadows of their former importance. Governmental function and political power, though by no means identical, are certainly not unrelated. The latter, of necessity, will eventually follow the formeras the British aristocracy gradually lost power once it had ceded responsibility for the business of government to a democratically elected House of Commons, and as the League of Nations finally collapsed when it failed to take over any significant governmental functions from its member nations.
The course of state politics, as a general phenomenon, is therefore of great importance to every American, both for its immediate influence on the practical activities of the federal government and for the decisive part which it will play in determining the future nature of the national political system. In addition, of course, every citizen has reason to be concerned with the powerful effect the government of his own state continues to exert over the schools in which his children are educated, the roads on which he drives his car, the civil and criminal courts through which most of his rights are protected, and the social atmosphere in which he must live a large part of his daily life.
There can be no doubt that state governments today face severe problemsconstitutional, financial, and even psychological. These problems will be either met or permitted to become unsolvable through the operations of state politics.
The study reported in the following pages was undertaken, through the sponsorship of the American Political Science Association and on a grant from the Stern Family Fund, as a kind of progress report on the politics of ten states which were judged for one reason or another to be crucial, typical, or otherwise important.
The first section of the study is composed of case histories of political activity in Virginia, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, New York, Texas, Ohio, Massachusetts, and California since approximately 1950. The second section contains a review of certain general characteristicsorganization, finance, influence of ethnic and economic factors, and the likeas they are represented in the states previously mentioned. A final chapter applies all of this material to the question of the future of the states as agencies of creative and progressive government, functioning as parts of the federal system.
A great deal of the credit for whatever value this study may have must go to the ten journalists who participated in its preparation by submitting reports on what happened in politics in their states from 1950 to 1962. They supplied most of the data, wrote drafts for the state chapters, and went over the final product. However, opinions expressed, particularly in the general sections that follow the case histories, are the responsibility of the project director alone.
Literally hundreds of people contributed information and advice during the course of the study. I give to all my heartfelt thanks. Special gratitude goes to my ten excellent collaborators; to Warren Weaver, Jr., of the New York Times who graciously went over the chapter on New York State; to Richard Scammon, who made available materials gathered for his highly useful America Votes volumes; to the American Political Science Association and its advisory committee for the state politics project; to the consistently generous trustees of the Stern Family Fund; to Dr. Evron M. Kirkpatrick, director of the American Political Science Association, and Mrs. Helen Hill Miller, executive secretary of the Stern Family Fund, both of whom offered invaluable counsel and encouragement; to Jeanne Benson, who prepared the maps and figures; and to my wife, for unfailing assistance and support.
