One of The Nation’s Highest Paid Legislatures Should Not Be the Least Productive
By State Representative Rob Mercuri
(This article first appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
As the new year begins, Pennsylvania’s state Legislature, the nation’s largest and one of its most expensive full-time legislative bodies, needs to make a New Year’s resolution for 2024 — to earn a return on the investment of the taxpayers whom they were elected to serve.
Over the course of the first half of the 2023-24 Legislative Session, our Commonwealth saw a historically unproductive year from its government. While our economy sputters, our students struggle and our residents relocate, the full-time Legislature sent Gov. Josh Shapiro only 77 bills, which is far less than half of the number of bills it would typically produce in a year of session. The politically charged air in Harrisburg is holding Pennsylvania back.
Pennsylvania is currently the only state in the country with a full-time legislature that is politically divided between chambers, with Democrats holding a one-seat majority in the House (though a recent resignation leaves the House deadlocked at 101-101) and Republicans having the Senate majority by six seats. While there can be benefits to a divided legislature when it comes to deal-making, House Democrats have played fast and loose with their small margin through the course of the year, leading to a slow-moving, politically charged and unproductive session. With a narrow, one-seat majority, House Democrats used multiple special elections to delay getting any work done on behalf of the people of Pennsylvania in order to preserve their control.
The state’s budget, the most basic of government responsibilities and due each year to Pennsylvanians on June 30, was completed on Dec. 13, an embarrassing 166 days late. No circumstances should ever prevent us from doing the people’s work, and we must get back to governing responsibly with a timely, fiscally responsible and competitive budget for the people of Pennsylvania in 2024.
Rather than using divided government as a strength in the past year, it was too often used as an excuse. As a truly “purple” state, Pennsylvania should be the example of working together across the aisle to deliver results for a better Commonwealth. However, working together takes effort and relies on mutual trust between parties.
That trust was badly damaged by Shapiro over perhaps the hottest topic of the first half of the session year — lifeline scholarships. Lifeline scholarships would directly fund students in the state’s lowest-performing school districts to pursue their education elsewhere. The governor endorsed this initiative on the campaign trail. He agreed to include it in the budget during his negotiations with the Senate. And then he reneged on that promise when the Democratic majority in the House, driven to the brink by special interests, refused to support it. When presented with the opportunity to lead with bipartisanship, the governor fell short, impacting thousands of students across the commonwealth.
Breaking such trust has consequences. However, we must work together to rebuild that trust to do our best work on behalf of the people who sent us to Harrisburg — 2024 is a new opportunity for us all.
The leaders of the Pennsylvania Legislature, along with the governor, must turn the page on a historically unproductive year by working to make 2024 a new standard for governing and delivering results. We should not look to the dysfunction in Washington, D.C., and emulate it here in Pennsylvania. Now is the time to get to work.
Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the House’s operations, such as a member resignation or the blamed water leak in the House chamber, we must leave the excuses behind and get back to work by producing quality results for the people of Pennsylvania.
Rob Mercuri, a Republican from Pine, represents the 28th District in Allegheny County.
