Oct 26, 2022 5 min read

These were all proposed by members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly during its 2021-22 session:

• A resolution honoring the retirement of Villanova University men’s basketball coach Jay Wright.
• A resolution honoring the late Philadelphia Phillies great Dick Allen.
• A resolution designating May 24, 2022, as “State Working Animal Day” in Pennsylvania.
• A resolution honoring the life and accomplishments of an 18th-century Pennsylvania botanist named Humphry Marshall.

We are big fans of Wright, Allen and animals. And we’re sure Marshall was a marvel of his time.

According to Pennsylvania Heritage, a quarterly published by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, Marshall “has been called the Father of American Dendrology, the study of wooded plants.”

So that’s impressive.

But we’re rooting for legislation that actually would improve the lives of modern-day Pennsylvanians and institutions. Like property tax reform. Charter school funding reform. Commonsense gun regulation. We want to see safer state roads. And improved broadband access in rural parts of the commonwealth.

Unfortunately, our feckless and bloated state Legislature doesn’t seem to be in the business of delivering legislation that’s actually necessary.

As Carol Kuniholm wrote in last Sunday’s Perspective section, “Pennsylvania’s full-time Legislature is among the bottom five in the country in average number of bills passed per year and percentage of introduced bills enacted, according to FiscalNote, an information services company.”

That’s despite the fact that it is the largest full-time legislature in the United States. And, as reported earlier this year by The Caucus, an LNP Media Group watchdog publication, Pennsylvania’s legislators are the third-highest-paid in the nation, behind only their peers in California and New York.

Despite their already-high pay, state lawmakers are set to receive historically large automatic pay raises that are expected to push their base salaries above $100,000 for the first time.

As The Caucus reported in August, Republican state Rep. Bryan Cutler of Drumore Township, the speaker of the Pennsylvania House, as well as Republican state Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, could see their salaries climb to more than $162,000.

In total, the raises for legislators alone could cost Pennsylvania taxpayers an additional $2 million next year.

Lawmakers also get generous benefits and can claim – without submitting receipts – per diems, flat-rate payments covering meals and lodging, for every session day they travel more than 50 miles from their homes for legislative business.

A conservative estimate of the state Legislature’s annual spending: $350 million.

We don’t get much for our money, except for a Legislature that is quick to criticize other institutions and parts of state government for inefficiency but is reluctant to address its own.

As The Caucus reported in April, the state Legislature couldn’t even pass legislation that would prohibit pet stores from selling commercially bred dogs, cats or rabbits.

As that publication noted, “Being anti-puppy-mill is about the easiest gimme in politics.”

Despite drawing numerous co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle, the bill (Victoria’s Law) was consigned to languish in committee.

The Caucus article explained why. Lawmakers voted Jan. 5, 2021, to adopt the rules “that would govern how the chambers operate for the next two years. Those rules give enormous power to a small group of legislative leaders. They can single-handedly set the legislative agenda, fast-track favored bills and bury legislation, even if it has the support of a majority of the 203-member House and 50-seat Senate.”

The rules are adopted quickly during the post-holiday haze, when most of us aren’t paying attention to what seems to be procedural inside baseball, but actually has a profound impact on how Harrisburg operates (or doesn’t). Committee chairs are given the ability to place a stranglehold on legislation, so hardly anything gets accomplished.

Many “good solutions that would benefit all Pennsylvanians are blocked in committee by chairs who act like petty tyrants,” Kuniholm wrote last Sunday, “ignoring the pleas of advocacy groups or repeated requests from their own colleagues.”

And the prospects for legislation proposed by the party out of power – Republicans have controlled the state Senate since 1994 and the state House since 2010 – are even dimmer than the odds that most opponents face against the Philadelphia Eagles this season.

As Kuniholm noted, “Many part-time legislatures, some with sessions just a few months long, pass far more bills with far more public input, addressing specific concerns with no partisan drama or legislative delay. Pennsylvania’s legislative process has become a game of partisan control focused on who gets credit, who stays in power and who gets the largest donations and gifts.”

In December 2018, this editorial board expressed the wish that our state lawmakers would “work hard and swiftly on Pennsylvania’s intertwined broken systems of educational funding and local property taxes. There must be an aggressive timetable to fully implement the bipartisan fair funding formula for all school districts. And, regarding property taxes, there must be relief for all (especially senior citizens) who receive these oft-crippling annual bills.”

Blame us for being naive in thinking state lawmakers would work “hard and swiftly” on anything, except making their own lives easier (like making pay raises automatic and gerrymandering legislative districts so they can retain power). Because none of those things we wished for have come to fruition.

Kuniholm noted that all 203 state House seats and half of Pennsylvania’s 50 Senate seats are on the ballot Nov. 8. She urged voters to ask candidates for the state General Assembly if they will press for new procedural rules in January that actually will enable the passage of important legislation. This is an excellent idea.

“When bipartisan solutions are ignored year after year, our economy, our health and our future are put at risk,” Kuniholm wrote. “Pennsylvania can’t afford two more years of an unresponsive, unaccountable state Legislature.”

We couldn’t agree more.