About time
In a rather historic move, members of the House State Government Committee voted this past week by a vote of 18-6 to cut the number of members in the state House of Representatives by 50 from 203-153.
It was the first time that a motion to reduce the number of state legislators had received a positive vote in either the state House or Senate. For that reason alone, the bill’s passage was noteworthy.
House Majority Leader Mike Turzai said he plans to bring the bill to a vote in the chamber in the spring. That will certainly be an interesting vote, but even if it passes, there will still be a long way to go before it becomes law.
Amending the Pennsylvania Constitution, which is needed for changing the number of legislators, is a long process. It requires passage by the Legislature in two consecutive two-year sessions before going to the state’s voters for final approval. If the bill is successful, the changes in House districts would not happen until after the 2020 census.
So while we won’t be seeing the bill’s effects for years, this is still a good start. We’re pleased to see reducing the size of the legislature is finally getting serious debate.
That being said, we’re not sure cutting 50 members is the right way to go. It certainly isn’t the best way to cut costs associated with the Legislature. The best way to do that would be to cut the number of legislative staffers, a move we’ve favored for quite some time.
As it stands, Pennsylvania’s lawmakers have somewhere in the range of 3,000 staffers. If distributed evenly (which they are not) that would be roughly 10 staffers per lawmaker. The bill for all these staffers that taxpayers have to foot? About $119 million.
Let’s say 10 percent of that 3,000-strong staff was cut. The savings to taxpayers would be in the neighborhood of $11 million.
The bill lopping off 50 legislators, each with a base salary of $79,613 a year, would save approximately $4 million.
Also, there is concern that reducing the size of the Legislature could hurt residents in rural areas such as ours. Currently, each of the House’s 203 members represents about 63,000 people. Under the current bill, House district populations would expand to about 80,000 under the bill.
It would make more sense to us that a 10 percent reduction in staff and a smaller reduction in lawmakers would be the best path forward. If we reduced the House by 28 members instead of 50, it would bring the total to 175 and the size of each district would increase from 63,000 to 70,000 – a change we think would be more palatable than increasing to 80,000.
What’s more, the proposal would bring some much needed common sense to the staffing of our state Legislature. Currently, there is no set process to explain how many aides each of the 203 House members and 50 state senators employ. That strikes us as idiotic. Under the current setup, staffing is determined by seniority, which makes no sense at all. Why should one lawmaker get more staffers than another just because he or she has been in office longer?
There should be a set number of staffers for each lawmaker – five or six, say – that would be more than sufficient to conduct state business.
On top of the savings to the taxpayer, this would also decrease the likelihood that staffers find themselves in legal trouble by conducting campaign business on state time. Such activities led to the arrest of staffers in Bonusgate and the current political corruption trial of state Rep. Bill DeWeese, D-Waynesburg. In fact, the grand jury looking into those allegations plainly stated that legislative staffs should be downsized to combat this problem.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly – the largest full-time legislature in the country – is just too big and costs too much. Only one state, California, pays its lawmakers more than the $79,613 we shell out for the rank-and-file (leaders in both houses get more, of course). It’s also worth mentioning that California actually pays less overall for their lawmakers even with the higher pay, since they only have 123 members to govern a much larger state than ours.
It’s interesting to note that the size of the Pennsylvania General Assembly has changed repeatedly over the years with the current number established by the 1968 Constitutional Convention. So, the number 203 isn’t something set in stone.
It’s also worth remembering that there was no real pain for legislators voting for the bill this past week, and there won’t be anything really at stake when the bill comes up this spring. Only votes next year will be for real. Until then, it’s possible some legislators could be posturing for their re-election bids. We won’t know for sure until this year who’s sincere and who’s not.
But all in all it was a good first step. We can only hope that members of the Legislature are finally getting serious about cutting costs in the way they operate.