Deforming the Pennsylvania House?
Democracy Rising Pennsylvania has an alert about proposed rules changes in the Pennsylvania House of Representative, that would undo much of the reforms of 2007. The changes including easing the time rule (allowing legislation to be enacted after 11 pm), ending the 24-hour waiting period to vote on final legislation - both of which would restrict the ability of the public to read the legislation, or for the Commonwealth Foundation to input it into Pennsylvania Votes, before it gets passed into law.
The changes would also revert back to allowing the Rules Committee to amend legislation, which was an old trick used to "gut-and-replace" bills with leadership derived bills (the Pay Raise was created in such a manner).
Ironically, the House Democrats cited these changes to the rules in 2007 as one of their great accomplishments in the spirit of reform.
4 comments:
Democracy Rising Pa says that the Ds are offering the Rs and "enticement". Will there be a vote on these rule changes? Can we alert the network of bloggers to vote against neutralizing last year's small gains?
"Not In Writing
House sources say that there are other aspects of the package that are not committed to writing. To entice Republicans to go along with this scheme, Democratic leaders have suggested that Republicans could get an additional seat on each standing committee. Apparently, this was part of the plan when Democrats reduced the number of Republicans on the committees in the current temporary rules. "
Yes, there will be a roll call vote. The legislation has not yet been introduced, so there is not a bill (resolution) number yet.
Will we know when this will occur so we can notify our lists?
Here is an update
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