By Kathie Beans
The state legislature will vote this month on two items that do not serve the public interest. The first, HR1, continues the procedural rules that give absolute control of which bills get a vote to the Republican leadership.
Thanks to these rules, only 7% of bills introduced in Pennsylvania ever get passed. The special interests that control the Republican leadership are the ones that they act on or against.
For example, the bills to prevent gerrymandering of the congressional and state legislative districts went nowhere for the past two years even though a Franklin and Marshall 2019 poll indicated that 66% of Pennsylvania voters oppose gerrymandering and more than half the state legislature signed on as cosponsors of the bills to end gerrymandering.