Push keeps lawmakers busy voting on bills

The race is on to get legislation considered before the two-year session ends.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- From January to Nov. 19, Gov. Ed Rendell signed 117 bills.
And from Nov. 20 until Friday the governor had signed an additional 36 bills, while 84 more remained on his desk.
Together, that's 118, a testament to the flurry of action in the final days of the Legislature's two-year session.
Some question whether Pennsylvania lawmakers are mishandling legislation.
When the Legislature finally closed down before dawn on Nov. 21, senators had been on the floor past midnight for four straight nights while lobbyists, government agencies and lawmakers pushed as hard as they could for their pet legislation. Each piece dies Nov. 30, the constitutionally mandated end of the session.
"It's a sloppy, messy, inappropriate way to do the public's business and the results can often be dangerous," said Barry Kauffman, executive director of the government watchdog, Common Cause Pennsylvania.
Divorce law changed
For instance, there was the end of session in 1998, when lawmakers unwittingly altered divorce law to allow judges in the course of awarding alimony payments to consider, among other things, sexual relationships couples engage in after separating, but before final divorce.
That law took effect Jan. 1, 1999, and within two months, lawmakers changed it back to allow judges setting alimony to consider only physical abuse of one spouse by the other during separation. All that took was changing a few words -- making "shall not" into "may."
Sen. Joe Conti, R-Bucks, contended that while every lawmaker doesn't read every word of every bill, they read the ones that come through their committee and the ones that are of high importance.
Some bills that pass in the last few days are familiar to the lawmakers from hearings and committee meetings during the two-year session, he said.
While some legislation is first seen by lawmakers during those hectic last few days -- such as a 13-page amendment to a bill giving utilities greater authority to shut off someone's service -- they generally have enough time to review and ask questions about the legislation before it is voted on, Conti said.
If he would change anything, it would be to get business done during daylight hours when lawmakers are fresher.
'All-weeker'
"It used to be we would have one all-nighter" at the end of the session, Conti said. "This week we had, should we call it, 'an all-weeker?'"
Sen. Robert J. Thompson, the Chester County Republican who chairs the Appropriations Committee, noted that the Legislature could spread out the work to create a smoother process but that such a move might risk cutting out some voices.
"While you would want to make it as streamlined as possible, you also don't want to make it something where people feel their input doesn't matter," he said.
Part of the reason why so much legislation waits until the very end of the session has to do with procrastination, many say. Sometimes it involves negotiating tactics, as interested parties in the legislation hold out as long as possible, trying to get leverage. If they find a sympathetic senator, he or she can hold up the legislation.
Kauffman contended that some legislation, such as the utility shut-off bill, gets put off until after the election so lawmakers don't have to cast a vote that could be used against them in the fall campaign.
"The art of the deal has overtaken the role of well-considered policy development," he said.
Changes suggested
Improvements suggested by Kauffman include getting rid of the voting days after the election so that each lawmaker's record in a session is fully known before he or she faces the voters. He also suggested a longer mandated period, such as two or three days, between the time a bill is amended and when it can be voted on.
Conti dismissed the idea that contentious bills are delayed deliberately or that last-minute legislation isn't thoroughly scrutinized. Every legislature in every state puts off decisions until they absolutely must be made, he said.
"The thing we do best in Harrisburg is do nothing," Conti said. "But there comes a time when the legislative time clock works in favor of getting the bill done."
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