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Plan to reduce Legislature falls far short
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share thisSen. David Argall must have confused Halloween with April Fool's Day last week, when he proposed a plan to reduce the size of the Legislature. It compensated in comedy for what it lacked in effectiveness.
The Tamaqua Republican would reduce the size of the Senate by 5 members and the size of the House by 50 members, over 44 years.
That works out to 1.13 representatives per year and 0.113 senators per year. Given the performance of the lawmakers during the recent budget impasse, citizens actually might enjoy reducing the size of the bloated Legislature tiny piece by tiny piece. But that wouldn't be practical.
Mr. Argall would eliminate 10 House seats and one Senate seat in the course of legislative redistricting that is done after each census.
In making his proposal, he reminded Pennsylvanians of two reasons that the Legislature needs to be reformed now, not 44 years from now.
First is that lawmakers have refused to enact reforms to ensure honest redistricting after next year's census. Under Mr. Argall's proposal, a commission would eliminate one Senate seat and 10 House seats after each census, but the remaining districts still would be gerrymandered.
Second is his explanation for the extraordinarily long period to modestly reduce the Legislature's size. Since reducing the size of the Legislature would require a constitutional amendment and must begin with legislation, there is little chance that lawmakers will introduce it.
"How do you ask someone to vote to cancel their own job?" Mr. Argall asked.
Well, you could start by defining the "job" as acting in the public interest. It's obvious by the vast web of advantages that lawmakers bestow upon themselves - from gerrymandering their districts, to free mailing of thinly disguised political material, to maintaining a $200 million operating surplus amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression - that preserving their jobs is their top priority. The objective is supposed to be reform, not accommodating self-serving lawmakers.
Mr. Argall's proposal only illustrates the problem. He should scrap the feeble effort and join forces with those who justly call for sweeping reform of the Legislature before humankind colonizes Mars.
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