Our state legislatures are now for the most part composed of members elected from fairly wieldy districts. Governmental changes then which look toward the application of the principles of commission government to the state, as outlined in the preceding chapter, have to do principally with the union of the executive and legislative powers. Several recent proposals for changes, coming from Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Oregon, indicate that legislators, governors, and political scientists with practical experience have concluded that the executive and legislative powers must be brought nearer together. The interesting fact, however, is that no plans have been suggested by which the legislature is to absorb the control of the executive power by placing it in the hands of the leaders of a majority of the legislature. On the contrary, the proposals for bringing the executive and legislature nearer together have, with one exception, been along the line of conferring upon the executive greater power to control and coerce the legislature. The Illinois House of Representatives at its 1913 session adopted a rule for which Representative Morton D. Hull was responsible. It provided as follows: When any bill or resolution is introduced for the purpose of carrying into effect any recommendation of the governor, it may by executive message addressed to the speaker of the house be made an administration measure. An administration measure may be sent to the appropriate committee, or it shall, upon request of its introducer, be sent to committee of the whole house. When such a measure has been reported out of committee, it shall have precedence in the consideration of the house over all other measures except appropriation bills. The house shall sit in committee of the whole for the consideration of administration measures on Tuesday morning immediately after the reading of the house journal. This rule very plainly brings the executive and the legislature nearer together. It does so, however, only by conferring upon the governor an important privilege which enables him to advance his legislative program. The proposed amendment to the Wisconsin constitution providing for an initiative by the electorate at large for legislation[18] gives to the governor a practical method of coercing or “steam-rollering” the opposition of a hostile legislature. It provides for the submission to the electorate at large of any bill introduced into the legislature any time within the first thirty days of the session. This enables the governor to present all administration bills to the legislature and if they fail of passage he may then present them for enactment into law by the electorate at large. This is giving the governor power to promote and control legislation to a very great degree.