Jun 4, 2008 3 min read

Republican leadership in the state senate is once again leading the way on a key reform, by banning any lame-duck session after this year’s November election. Those sessions are notorious for producing last-minute bills supported by those who are leaving office through retirement or defeat at the polls. Those folks have nothing to lose, so it’s a fertile season for mischievous behavior, where such things as raising lawmakers’ pay, funding professional sports stadiums and permitting liquor sales on Sundays can more easily get rammed through and voted on.

“A lot of bills get passed and a lot of mischief has taken place,” says Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson. He believes that refusing to hold a lame-duck session will restore some trust and faith in the Legislature.

Most states ban lame-duck sessions, recognizing that it’s patently unfair to let legislators who are headed out the door participate in a process where they’ll have no accountability to voters. In November 2006 – the last lame-duck session – more than 50 of the state’s 253 legislators fit in that category.

But it should come as no surprise that lame-duck sessions, long recognized as onerous in most other places, have been a staple of Pennsylvania politics. A study by Common Cause of Pennsylvania showed that lame-duck sessions, held once every two years, accounted for a whopping 30 percent of the non-appropriations bills signed into law during an eight-year period in the 1990s.

That good-government group’s executive director, Barry Kauffman, reminds us that the Senate Republican action is a one-time deal, good for only this year and under this leadership team. Common Cause supports an outright ban, which involves amending the state Constitution. Bills to start that process are pending in the House and Senate, and should be moved forward expeditiously.

Some legislators may bemoan the change, but that’s because they have the most to lose from the heightened accountability provided by eliminating lame-duck sessions. Scarnati doesn’t see prohibiting legislative bills from moving in the month of November, every other year, as a big problem. He says the change will hopefully “put everybody just a bit more in working gear instead of coasting gear” in September and October.

According to Democracy Rising PA, a 2007 poll showed that 82 percent of Pennsylvanians want an end to lame-duck sessions. While the Senate leadership’s move accomplishes that goal, at least temporarily, we’d like to know how the House Democratic leadership, headed by Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, feels about the issue. While we don’t know his thoughts, if he is against holding lame-duck sessions, it’s fair to say the Senate Republicans have beaten him to the punch once again.

We urge all members of our local delegation to stand squarely behind efforts to make lame-duck sessions a relic of the past. They do nothing to promote the kind of good government we should expect from our elected officials.