Editorial: This is a legislature?

Today, the Editorial Board offers the first installment of examples of waste in the General Assembly, as highlighted in a recent Grand Jury report. Look for more to come this week. Readers should consider how the candidates for governor say they will clean up Harrisburg.

Pennsylvania's legislators are among the highest-paid state lawmakers in the nation, with rank-and-file members being paid $78,314 annually (excluding benefits and other perks, such as per diem expenses). Legislative and party leaders receive higher salaries; the speaker of the House is paid $122,254.

The legislature is considered full-time, yet many legislators hold other jobs, and the House was in session an average of only 101 days per year over the past four years. While the grand jury acknowledged that some work occurs when the legislature is not officially in session, "these numbers do not appear to justify full-time status."

Even days spent in session are sometimes, shockingly, pointless. The grand jury found that legislators occasionally would debate a bill that had already passed, for lack of anything better to do. "This procedure was clearly designed to give the appearance of working, when in reality no legitimate work was being done."

Further proof that the legislature is really part-time: the abundance of taxpayer-paid staffers assigned to perform campaign work during regular business hours, the subject of the grand jury's investigation in the first place.

Fewer than a dozen states have truly full-time legislatures. If Pennsylvania's returned to part-time status, with corresponding salary cuts, the grand jury found it could save more than $10 million annually in salaries alone.