Size of legislature-column-O'Neill

==A good cut any way you slice it==
: Sunday, January 21, 2007, http://post-gazette.com/pg/07021/755267-155.stm
: By Brian O'Neill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"I read your editorial on reducing the [state]
Legislature this morning, the e-mail began. " . . .
and . . . it's an absolutely terrible idea.''
I love letters that begin with no dilly-dallying. You
sense that, though the person is trying to be polite,
he believes you to be a twit badly in need of the
guidance only he can give.
That the writer turned out be Daylin Leach, a member
of America's Largest Full-Time State House of
Representatives, only made his missive more welcome.
When I looked up Mr. Leach on the House Web site,
http://www.house.state.pa.us/, I learned he was a Democrat
with an office in King of Prussia.
I have fond memories of this Philadelphia suburb
because my brand-new used Vette broke down there on my
way to a newspaper job interview one hot July day in
1978. (That was a Chevette, but I've always said a
Vette's a Vette.)
As I recall, the good mechanic in King of Prussia did
not rip me off on the voltage regulator, and so I have
reason to trust those who hail from the area. But as I
read Mr. Leach's arguments, he seemed to build my
case, not his.
Mr. Leach since has written an essay for our op-ed
page, and I invite you to look out for that. His
argument had better improve from the one he offered
me, however, because his e-mail only bolsters the case
to shrink the Pennsylvania General Assembly, America's
most expensive statehouse.
His central point is to consider a reasonable number
of constituents for a lawmaker to represent. He figure
about 62,000 people is reasonable for a House member
and 250,000 for a senator. That's what Pennsylvania
has today.
He included a chart showing the numbers for each
state, and he's right that dozens of states have
lawmakers who answer to fewer constituents than
Pennsylvania lawmakers do.
But do we care about how things are done in Oklahoma,
Arkansas or Vermont? We live in a highly populated
state, with big urban centers as well as large rural
areas. Pennsylvania is one of only eight states with
at least 10 million people. We need to look at their
statehouses.
This chart uses figures supplied by Mr. Leach, which
he says are based on state population figures from
Wikipedia. The numbers indicate the size of lower
house in each state legislature, and the number of
people each lawmaker represents.
I rank them as Mr. Leach did, by constituents per
representative. The first column is the number of
representatives in the lower house, the second the
number of people each lawmaker represents, according
to his calculation.
California 80 455,719
Texas 150 156,719
Florida 120 150,749
New York 150 128,708
Ohio 99 114,678
Illinois 118 105,248
Michigan 110 91,779
Pennsylvania 203 61,284
Lawmakers in Arizona, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado,
North Carolina, Washington and Indiana also answer to
more constituents than ours do, but why pad the list?
Sticking only to the peer group of the eight largest
states, it's clear Pennsylvania is out of whack.
The proposal to shrink our statehouse is hardly
revolutionary. Sen. John Pippy, a Republican from
Moon, suggests going from 50 to 40 senators and from
203 representatives to 161. That 20 percent cut would
leave each House member in a district of about 77,200
people.
That would remain the smallest district in any of the
eight most populous states. To put that another way,
we'd still be paying for the biggest House in our peer
group.
Mr. Leach makes the dubious claim that this overhaul
won't save much money, but with salaries, benefits,
pensions, per diems, offices and staff, savings are
considerable. Sen. Pippy believes the downsizing could
save more than $60 million per year.
This would not greatly increase the cost of campaigns
or disenfranchise anyone. It would save tens of
millions of dollars.
Why can't Pennsylvania do it the way the big states
do?
==Links==
* Size of legislature
category:news coverage