Letter to the editor: We need more from our Pa. legislators

Dear Pennsylvania legislators:

You were warned, but again this month, as you do every session, you neutered yourselves, ceding your powers to the four leaders of the Pennsylvania House and Senate.

Those leaders presented the rules at the last minute as they always do, and you passed them without amendments, giving them full control over which bills get hearings and votes. Your ideas to improve the lives of your constituents — from lead poisoning and school funding, to environmental protection and true legislative transparency? Now in their hands.

You’ll watch them ignore bills with strong support while ramming through measures with little or no public support (often behind closed doors.) Less than 7% of the thousands of bills you’ll draft will pass. Half that do pass one chamber die there.

Pennsylvania has one of the largest, least efficient, costliest and least transparent legislatures in America. You could have enacted rules guaranteeing that bills with enough sponsorships get hearings, committee-approved bills get floor votes, and bills passed by one house get votes in the other. But you didn’t.

Spare the platitudes that your every action is guided by “the voice of the people.”

Pennsylvanians want you to represent them with a legislative process that’s efficient, transparent and fair.

Doug Webster

Monroeville