State Senate approves bill to reduce House districts
The state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to reduce the number of House districts, a week after a similar bill also affecting the Senate moved out of committee.
House Bill 153, which would reduce the House from 203 to 151 districts, passed the Senate 43-6, with all state senators from southwest Pennsylvania supporting the measure.
Cutting the size of the Legislature requires amending the state Constitution and that occurs when the same bill is passed by the House and Senate in two consecutive sessions and then approved in a statewide referendum.
There have been various proposals over the years to reduce the General Assembly, but nothing has come of them. With 253 seats, the General Assembly is the largest full-time legislature in the nation and second in size only to New Hampshire’s, the Associated Press reported.
State Rep. Jerry Knowles, a Schuylkill County Republican, introduced the House bill in January 2015 and it passed in a 139-56 vote in May after which it was sent to the Senate.
In his co-sponsorship memo to colleagues a year ago, Knowles said, “There is no magic in the number 203” before noting that the number of House districts came from a mistake following the 1968 state Constitutional Convention.
“Once the final map was drawn, it was noticed that instead of 201 seats they had 203,” he wrote. “The drafters of the maps did not want to draft another map so they left the number at 203.”
Last week, the Senate’s State Government Committee approved Senate Bill 488, introduced by state Sen. Elder Vogel Jr., R-New Sewickley Township, Beaver County, which would reduce the Senate from 50 to 45 districts and the House from 203 to 153 districts.
That bill is now before the full Senate.