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State Rep. Valerie Gaydos is a month early with a proposed and badly needed state constitutional amendment to reduce the size of the bloated House of Representatives, in that April Fools' Day is not until April 1.
The Allegheny County Republican spoke the obvious truth recently while proposing to cut the size of the House from 203 to 151 seats.
"Pennsylvania has the second-largest state legislature in the country," Gaydos said. "Reducing the number of seats in the House of Representatives will not only provide a significant cost savings to taxpayers, but also streamline the legislative process and make it easier for lawmakers to reach consensus."
Not only that, but a smaller House would make it harder to gerrymander legislative districts because each would have about 85,000 residents rather than the current 63,000 (each U.S. House district includes about 770,000 residents), and many would have to cover more territory. That raises at least the prospect of political diversity in more districts, thus more competitive elections.
As Gaydos suggested, greater diversity within larger districts would compel more lawmakers to actually legislate -- that is, compromise in search of broad progress on important matters -- rather than spout ideology that small, homogeneous constituencies want to hear.
Gaydos also did not make the same mistake that killed the most promising effort to reduce the size of the Legislature, about a decade ago. Then, House Speaker Sam Smith sponsored an amendment to reduce the House to 151 seats, but it died because it included reducing the 50-seat Senate to 28 seats and assured its demise in that chamber. Gaydos' bill addresses only the House.
Gaydos' proposal has an element of cruelty to it because it is rational, rooted in sound public policy, badly needed, yet impossible to get by the very chamber that it would affect.
In that sense, it serves the further purpose of offering a microcosm of governance in Pennsylvania.
-- Scranton Times-Tribune