A one-seat Democratic majority in the state House of Representatives has altered the start of the new legislative session.

The legislative process has “proceeded very slowly,” according to State Representative Kathy Rapp.

Changes in the Speaker’s chair have played a significant role in the delay.

Democratic Berks Co. Rep. Mark Rozzi was initially elected Speaker but Rapp said that was intended to be temporary.

When he was elected, the chamber was “not able to have a majority vote on the rules on that day,” Rapp said during Warren-Forest Hi-Ed’s legislative breakfast on Friday.

Without rules, work grinds to a half.

And that shows, among other areas, in the number of bills that have been introduced.

As of March 17, 539 bills had been introduced. In the last three terms, HB 539 was filed in mid-February.

Rapp has yet to file legislation as prime sponsor and has co-sponsored two pieces of legislation – renaming a road and bridge in Cumberland County in memory of SFC Randall Shughart, a US Army recipient of the Medal of Honor who was killed in combat in 1993 in Somalia.

She’s also signed on to a resolution designating May 20 as “Jimmy Stewart Day.”

“I rarely sponsor bills anymore,” Rapp said. “My sponsor at the end of the day is my vote.”

She said the rules process took several weeks and included the election of Joanna McClinton, a Democrat from Philadelphia/Delaware, as speaker.

“She is the first African-American woman to be Speaker of the House,” Rapp said. “We should be very proud of that.”

Rapp will serve as the Republican chair of the House Health Committee this term.

“My first committee meeting is next Wednesday,” she said. “These are pretty innocuous bills,” citing the “narrow margin of majority votes.”

None of those bills are “earth shattering. Things have really proceeded very slowly. The new majority party has taken time. (We) just now in the House are getting bills that are in full, legislative written form just in the last couple weeks. It’s been kind of a slow process in the House.”

The House will reconvene on April 24 and Rapp suggested “then we will see more legislation move through the House and the Senate.”