Prepare for a letdown on reform

From the editorial page of The Mercury, here's a look at how the much-ballyhooed reform efforts by the Pennsylvania Legislature will disappoint most residents.

Legislative task force proposals fall short of needed reforms

Some good news came out of Harrisburg last week, but excuse us for not jumping with joy.

The state House commission on legislative reforms made its final recommendations last week, among them a widely praised move to widen open-records laws and campaign finance reporting.

But the reforms are just bringing Pennsylvania out of the dark ages in some cases, and in other cases, fail to go far enough to control legislative spending.

The reform panel voted against term limits for lawmakers and offered a lame attempt to control legislative spending.

While the recommendations to change the Right-to-Know Law are a vast improvement over the present, the panel failed to endorse proposals to have a court "special master" or an Office of Public Access mediate records disputes.

As a result, the law may have more muscle, but a citizen denied access to public records may still struggle with enforcement.

The reform panel voted against both eight-year and 12-year term limits for lawmakers and against allowing committee chairmen to serve only three terms, once again looking out for the interests of legislative leadership at the expense of the rank-and-file.

The chairmanship limits were unanimously supported by the commission's 12 Republican House members, but only five of the 12 Democrats voted for it. Commission rules require at least nine "yes" votes from each party for passage.

The open-records victory was long overdue.

Pennsylvania law currently defines just two categories of government records as public, making it among the weakest access laws in the country.

A proposal to extend the Right-to-Know Law to the Legislature, which is currently exempt, also was unanimously endorsed, although an exception was carved out for "constituent casework" and documents or records related to meetings that do not have to be held in public.

The commission voted in favor of limiting campaign donations in statewide races but could not reach consensus on the size of those limits.

It also voted against shrinking the size of the 253-member General Assembly but endorsed looking for ways to cut legislative spending.

"Looking for ways" falls short of the efficiencies taxpayers would like to see instituted.

The reform panel's goals were to make recommendations on some wholesale changes that would instill more transparency and efficiency in state government to give voters more confidence in their lawmakers.

The proposals made during recent weeks begin that process on some fronts, but legislators have a long way to go before voters will be satisfied that they are doing the jobs they were elected to do in the best and most efficient ways possible.

We are pleased to see the recommendation for open-records reforms and for limits on campaign donations. But left intact are many practices and loopholes that still support the way business has always been conducted in the politicized halls of Harrisburg.

Speaker Dennis O'Brien, R-Philadelphia, said the commission's work is finished. We believe it should be just beginning.

Copyright 2007, The Mercury

The terrific cartoon above is by Randy Bish of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. To view more of Randy's work, go to http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/bish/