Letters to the editor: Vaccine advice, beware gerrymandered courts, Kelly questioned
Erie Times-News
Forget Banana Split Day, pass laws to improve Pennsylvanians' lives
If dysfunction were measured in fire alarms, Pennsylvania’s legislature would rightly be a five-alarm fire. Pennsylvania’s legislature, among the largest and highest paid in the country, does appallingly little lawmaking, even when the issue before them is a certified no-brainer.
Our full-time legislators in the House met 69 days, and Senate members only 52 days, in the last calendar year. At the beginning of every legislative session, the two bodies of our bloated, dysfunctional, do-nothing legislature vote on the rules. In so doing, members cede power to bring bills to the floor to the legislative leaders, House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff and Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, and to their hand-picked committee chairs. Republicans in our highly gerrymandered state have complete control of what’s sent to the floor.