TI3IS volume is founded upon an assumption that the effective functioning of the state legislature is important to American public welfare. It is my own assumption that a state legislature will not function effectively unless a substantial number of its members have acquired several sessions of experience in the lawmaking process. This article is designed to show to what extent the contemporary state legislature is an experienced or inexperienced assemblage and to offer some explanation of why transiency of membership is so common. My assumption as to the value of continued legislative service, I have learned from frequent conversations, is by no means universally shared; therefore these opening paragraphs arguing in justification of an effort to measure legislative tenure and to inquire into the causes of its brevity 1 IMPORTANCE OF CONTINUED SERVICE One frequently meets the assertion that the continuance of legislators in their positions over a period of years is positively undesirable, because it can be accomplished only through the negation of the principle that the personnel of the legislature should respond to the changing wants of the electorate-that currents of opinion shift with such frequency that the legislator will become spokesman for a repudiated program before he can become a veteran at lawmaking.The reply to this is that life is not quite like that. Popular will rarely if ever shifts ground with such suddenness as would necessitate the complete purging of a legislative body within the course of a decade. Each new deal has its John-the-Baptists who cried out from the wilderness of their minority position; they should occupy prominent positions in the legislature which frames the new order. Not all of a generation bring meat worthy of repentance; the unbelievers are entitled, according to current American theory, to representation. And their representation will be more effective if some of the stalwarts who defended the old order in legislative halls are present to abhor and denounce when new legislation is being enacted.Even in the most revolutionary times there is, therefore, room in the legislature for men who have acquired substantial lawmaking experience. And of course, at times when the political scene is relatively undisturbed by currents of opinion, a number of individuals may prove acceptable throughout a period of years.It is also said, in refutation of my assumption, that lawmaking is a problem for amateurs, and that the product, statutes, is not rendered more generally acceptable because lawmakers * Students employed on Federal funds were utilized in the collection of the data on which this study is based. Devices for checking the accuracy of data were used which are believed to have reduced error to a minimum. Funds granted from the Graduate Research Fund of the University of Illinois made possible the use of the punch-card, machine-tabulating process.

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