Force a Change in Pa. Legislature Rules

To the Editor:

Procedural rules in our Pennsylvania Legislature matter. The first vote of the new session puts rules in place for the next two years. In many states, automatic calendar rules ensure bills are given a hearing and brought to a vote.

But not in Pennsylvania. Here, just one leader can shut down a vote on a popular bill that has strong bipartisan support.

One unfortunate result of this is that a full-time legislature (funded by us taxpayers) is less productive. They end up enacting far fewer bills and getting less accomplished than even most part-time legislatures in other states ca...