On Aug. 2, the Warren Times Observer published a full page of proposed amendments to our state constitution. This was followed up with an article by State Sen. Judy Ward on Aug. 15. These amendments concern contentious and important issues: allowing the legislature to disapprove a regulation without the Governor’s approval, denying a constitutional right to abortion in Pennsylvania, adding a new identification requirement for all voters at every election, requiring a new form of election audit controlled by the legislature, changing the way our Lieutenant Governor would be chosen.

Regardless of your position on these issues, they are important, and deserve serious debate both among the public and among our legislators. None of the proposed amendments has had that debate.

Instead, these proposed amendments demonstrate real problems with the current legislative rules in Pennsylvania. Rather than receiving robust public hearings and debate, most of these amendments were tacked on to Senate Bill 106 in committee and moved hastily through the legislature in proceedings in the two days before the legislature adjourned.

SB106 originally started in the Senate State Government Committee as a bill giving candidates for governor the right to choose their lieutenant governor. Then it passed the House State Government Committee in April 2021 but was referred back to the Senate committee where new constitutional amendments were added in December 2021. Then it lay dormant until July.

At 10:35 p.m. July 7, the Committee brought up the bill, added the proposed constitutional amendment regarding abortion rights, tabled all amendments proposed by the minority party, and passed the newly amended bill by party line vote.

The next morning, the bill passed the entire Senate on party-line vote with no amendments allowed. From there it went to a House Committee at 4:55 p.m., and was again passed with party line votes and all amendments proposed by the minority party tabled. Starting at about 8:15 p.m., despite increasingly heated appeals to allow debate, amendment, and to consider the fairness of the timing, SB 106 passed the House on party-line vote.

Both chambers began their summer recess shortly after passing this bill.

None of these amendments received public discussion or even public notice. There were no hearings on these amendments. There was no expert testimony. Instead, legislative leaders manipulated procedural rules to ram through a bill with multiple contentious topics late in the days just before summer recess.?

In 2015, The Bipartisan Policy Center and Fair Vote, in collaboration with the National Council of State Legislatures, released an agenda-fairness score for every state in the US, based on the procedural rules in place to ensure all legislators are able to represent their constituents and play a meaningful role in the legislative process. While a handful of states scored 100%, Pennsylvania scored zero. SB 106 shows that PA’s legislative rules allow legislation that lacks this serious public and legislative debate to be pushed through when legislative leaders choose.

#Fix Harrisburg is a movement to change this. The League of Women Voters urges you to be part of this change by signing the petition at www.FixHarrisburg.com, by letting your legislators know you support fair legislative rules in Pennsylvania and by making informed choices when and if these amendments come to a public vote.

Phyllis Wright is vice president of communications for the League of Women Voters of Warren County.