Burnsville Representative Wants 25 Percent Fewer Colleagues

Rep. Will Morgan (DFL-56B) wants fewer colleagues.

The Burnsville lawmaker has sponsored a bill to cut the size of Minnesota's legislature by about a quarter.

Morgan sat down with a reporter for Starting Line, the Session Daily's web video series, to talk about his proposal.

"I think you want to see the state run more efficiently but just as effectively," Morgan said in the video, which is viewable above or on YouTube. "There have been a lot of proposals to slash the state workforce by X percent here and there, but I haven't seen a lot of proposals to slash the elected officials by X percent."

Under his proposed legislation, the number of representatives would drop from 134 to 98 and the number of senators from 67 to 49. Each representative would have about 50,000 constituents and each senator about 100,000. The reduction would go into effect starting in the 2016 election.