Taxpayers need to stay focused on long road to reform
Some things I never thought I’d see: water running up hill, pigs flying and the Pennsylvania Legislature cleaning up its act. After a bitter winter we become hopeful with the signs of spring -flowers poking up through the frigid ground, the first robin. There are some indications of a possible shift in the legislature, although too soon for voters to throw up our hands in glee. There’s a new Speaker in town, albeit a 30-plus-year veteran of the Pennsylvania House, and he has appointed a reform committee.
One has to wonder what he was doing the other 30 years, but at least he appears to be able to read the signs: the winds of change blew in a crop of new legislators bent on reform, voted in by angry citizens decrying “business as usual”; several reform groups sprouted in reaction to the obscene pay raise in 2005, such as Democracy Rising, Rock the Capital, PA Cleansweep and others; and some, such as Common Cause, flowered.
A Supreme Court justice was the first casualty, thrown out by voters who saw the court as collaborating in the pay raise, and the wave of disgust carried out veteran legislators, some in leadership positions, and left others fighting for seats they previously and barely had to lift a finger to retain.
One local state representative, Bill DeWeese, has been, I believe, notoriously slow to come to the reform table – he was one of the last two holdouts to support rescinding the pay raise, the last to release figures on secret bonuses paid to legislature staff and he clung to statistics on “private” accounts as though it were his own money.
It seems, however, DeWeese has been among the first in line to raise pays, approve audacious perks, use public funds for a personal chauffeur and accumulate a chest full of our money. He is now touted, by self and others, as a leader in the reform movement. We shall see.
The House Speaker’s Reform Commission has recommended 30 changes to the rules regarding the way the House does business. Included are opening spending records, requiring members be present to vote and preventing legislators from leasing cars from private dealers at public expense, among others.
These recommendations make basic sense – it’s unwise, for example, to hold votes in the middle of the night – and they are long overdue. They are a beginning to start chipping away at the audacious institution that is known as the Pennsylvania State Legislature – the largest, highest-paid, full-time legislature in the country.
But they are a start, and would have been thought an unattainable voters’ pipe dream less than two years ago. July 2005 brought the tipping point. The ill-fated pay raise grab opened a flood of voter indignation and mistrust that had been simmering for years.
So please, legislators, use this as a starting point; pass these recommendations and dig deeper – give us the best lobbyist control laws in the country, the best campaign finance reform, get rid of per diems and non-contributory health insurance, reduce the bloated size of the body and appoint a non-partisan committee to redistrict the state using geographic borders, not gerrymandered to keep long term legislators in office.
OK, you gave up catered means, private car leases and DeWeese’s chauffeur. Keep going! The road is long, and I don’t think you’ll be allowed the privilege of continuing if you don’t become pure public servants.
Some of the needed changes require revisiting the state Constitution via a Constitutional Convention, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in 40 years. This may be another example of the change in climate in Pennsylvania.
Out of frustration in July 2005 I e-mailed Barry Kaufman, head of Common Cause and a person I do not know but admire for his reform work. I asked him for information on a referendum to change the state constitution.
His reply was that reducing the size of the legislature has been proposed in every legislative session since the mid-1970s but never gotten out of committee, and that it would take the legislature to call a constitutional convention and he didn’t see much hope of that.
We now have a legislator proposing a bill calling for a Constitutional Convention and the state Senate Government Committee is holding a series of three hearings around the state – one has already occurred in Pittsburgh – on convening a Constitutional Convention.
Again, there is much to be done, and it’s not only up to the elected officials. Kudos to new state representatives such as Tim Mahoney, who went in prepared to make positive changes and wasted no time getting started.
The voters must keep watch, keep voicing opinions, keep voting and holding legislators accountable. The media must keep reporting and exposing malfeasance. This effort is a marathon, not a sprint.
Jane Sheehan of Brownsville is the community member of the Herald-Standard editorial board.