"Legislative transplants" e dialogo parlamentare nell'ordinamento federale statunitense: il ruolo della National conference of State Legislatures

After closely examining the evolution of National-State relations in the U.S. Constitutional system, the article evaluates how in the federal structure of joint sovereigns State Legislatures are permitted to act as “Laboratories of Democracy” and to develop new social, economic and political ideas. State experimentation allows lawmakers to observe and emulate workable solutions, encouraging the diffusion of policy innovation among States and in the national policymaking too. In other words, the dialogue among State Legislatures and between Congress and other Legislators of the United States enhances the opportunity to learn from the most successful practices developed at all levels of government. And this dialectic process has also suggested to analyse whether the parliamentary dialogue may produce a perspective of ‘legislative trasplants’. In this context, the National Conference of State Legislatures, founded in 1975, has emerged bringing together Legislators and legislative staffs throught the Country into a cohesive group to promote communication in the American federalism. It plays a fundamental role in providing informations that State Legislatures seek about a whole range of issues they must handle, especially as regards state policies which have dealt with similar political question.