Aug 22, 2006 3 min read

A 30-second telephone call. That’s all it would take for a Pennsylvania state legislator, any legislator, from either political party and regardless of hierarchical stature, to order up the best piece of reform legislation in the land. All he or she has to do is phone the Legislative Reference Bureau, a $9 million-a-year, taxpayer-funded branch of state government that employs attorneys by the bushel, and place a simple order: “I want you to draft the best (open records, lobbyist control or whatever) law in the nation. Thanks.”

According to Tim Potts, cofounder of DemocracyRisingPA, in about two weeks the bill would appear on the requesting legislator’s desk, ready for introduction. Because other states do these things so much better – and so much sooner – than Pennsylvania, the templates are already out there, ready for easy picking.

Take the Keystone State’s weak open records law (which notoriously exempts the state legislature, the governor’s office and the state court system). Potts says a University of Florida study ranked Pennsylvania as having the 44th best open records law in the United States. But leapfrogging to number one is as simple as copying Washington state’s law and adding a single provision from Kentucky’s law, something Potts says the Legislative Reference Bureau could craft in a near-instant.

“There is a state that has the best open records law. It’s just not Pennsylvania,” Potts told a recent gathering of the Herald-Standard Editorial Board. Asked why no one in the state legislature is willing to order up the country’s best open records legislation, or at least a reasonable facsimile, Potts says bluntly, “They don’t do it because they don’t want it. And because we don’t demand it.”

Potts, a former communications director for state Rep. H. William DeWeese, for whom he worked seven years, has an insider’s knowledge of things like the Legislative Reference Bureau. All citizens should thank him for sharing with the public just how simple it is to get new bills drafted, and for being in the forefront of a much-needed reform movement.

Members of both political parties – and especially his former boss, who’s become ossified in his role as minority leader – should heed Potts’ prediction that, “Anybody who decided to adopt a reform platform would win (elections), for the foreseeable future. They would win, win big and win for a very long time.”

But Harrisburg incumbents are the least likely to embrace such a platform, even as the public clamors for one. Why?”They don’t want to reform it, because they enjoy it so much,” says Potts. That’s a tragedy, but when so many legislators voted for last year’s pay raise and/or took the money as unvouchered expenses, then refused to repay it or reluctantly voted for its repeal, it proves the sheer contempt many of them have for their constituents.

As Potts sees it, approximately 7.6 million adult Pennsylvanians support major state government reforms. A grand total of 129 people – a 26-vote majority in the House, a 102-vote majority in the House and the governor – are keeping that from happening. He thinks a strong signal needs sent that reform actions are urgently needed. We concur wholeheartedly with that assessment, and urge voters to keep their eyes on the fast balls that matter, not the worthless curve balls politicians will be throwing their way.

If you want real reforms, keep these words from Potts in mind:”We’ve simply got to grab them by the throat.”