Letter to the editor: Holding legislators accountable

Fact: Twenty-seven children and staff members at an Allentown day care center were recently hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning.

Fact: Legislators in Harrisburg are among the highest-paid in the country.

Fact: Legislators in Harrisburg are among the least productive in the country. Pennsylvania pays its legislators a lot to get barely anything done.

These facts are all related. How? Through the rules our legislators establish at the start of each session. Because of those rules, a bill to require carbon monoxide monitors in child care centers has never come up for a vote in the House. That bill will die again in the House Health Committee before this year’s election.

Why does this happen? Because our legislators vote in favor of rules that allow a handful of partisan leaders to decide which bills get traction. Commonsense legislation with strong bipartisan and citizen support is continually ignored.

Do you want broadband access? Gift bans for legislators? Protection from surprise medical bills? Your legislators can’t deliver those unless majority leaders approve. So far, they don’t. It’s past time to hold local legislators accountable. Demand that they change the procedural rules so that the initiatives citizens strongly support become realities.

Helen Sitler

Ligonier