=The Proposed Reconstruction of State Government.=—The system of state government, as it now stands, is not obtaining satisfactory results. The state legislatures have declined in popular confidence during the past generation; men of inferior quality are frequently elected to them; the work of lawmaking is influenced too much by party considerations; the administrative departments are too numerous in most of the states and often fail to do their work efficiently. State taxes are everywhere going up rapidly and state debts are increasing. Various plans for a radical reconstruction in state government have been proposed in order to remedy these defects. One proposal is that the two-chambered legislature should be abolished and a single small body of representatives put in its place. It is argued that if fewer legislators were elected better men would be chosen and that the process of lawmaking would thereby be improved. Some have even gone so far as to urge that we should establish commission government for states as well as for cities. State government, they argue, has become so complicated that it now needs a smaller number of capable men giving their undivided attention to it. A two-chambered legislature, which meets for a few months every second year, cannot handle the business effectively. Nevertheless the people have become thoroughly accustomed to double-chambered legislatures, and where the proposal to establish a single chamber has been submitted to them (as in Oregon) they have rejected it. [Sidenote: Should the governor’s powers be increased?] Another plan proposes the vesting of larger powers in the hands of the governor, giving him the initiative in financial matters and making all the state administrative departments responsible to him. Today the drift is very strongly in this direction. Already, in some states, the governor is a more important factor than the legislature, and this is strangely in contrast with the situation as it was a hundred years or more ago. James Madison, in his time, spoke of the governors as “little more than ciphers” and declared that the legislatures were omnipotent. In our day this has entirely changed, or is changing. The balance of power is steadily swinging from the legislative to the executive branch. General References C. A. BEARD, _American Government and Politics_, pp. 428-577; _Ibid._, _Readings in American Government and Politics_, pp. 391-508; EVERETT KIMBALL, _State and Municipal Government_, pp. 131-308; W. B. MUNRO, _Government of the United States_, pp. 389-459; A. N. HOLCOMBE, _State Government in the United States_, pp. 240-393; J. T. YOUNG, _The New American Government and Its Work_, pp. 298-341; WOODROW WILSON, _The State_, pp. 315-336; P. S. REINSCH, _Readings in American Federal Government_, pp. 222-239; J. M. MATHEWS, _Principles of American State Administration_, pp. 25-214;