Group calls for creating new state legislature

Pocono Record ^ | October 10, 2009 | David Pierce

[RBW in PA]

Pennsylvania legislators may be relieved just to have a budget in place after a 101-day impasse, but one group of citizens wants to throw them out of office and start from scratch.

A petition asks the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to invoke a provision of the state constitution to dissolve the General Assembly within 45 days and convene a constitutional convention to establish a new elective body.

Proponents want to replace the current crew — 50 state senators and 203 house members — with a single chamber of no more than 70 members. Current assembly members would be barred from serving as delegates to the convention and prohibited from returning as legislators for five years.

[mark3681]

THAT’S THE SPIRIT!

Throw all the bums out!

[cc2k]

While I think this guy has a point about the expense of salaries, benefits and staff for the legislature, I’m not sure his proposed solution is the best approach. The voters up there really do need to get this under control. Every legislator has a car, paid for by the state???

Of course, it is easy for me to say that, I live in Florida.

Even here, the expense of our legislative bodies is significant, and growing in a time when everyone else has to tighten their belts. We have fairly high unemployment in the state, and the two biggest industries in our economy are particularly hard hit. Tourism is down, and building is off because population growth has disappeared. Yet we are fighting at all levels of the government down here for our representatives to live within our reduced means.

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From the desk of cc2k:

Legislative Proposal: Federalism tax credit Term Limits from the Grass Roots The Two Million Frog March (Why 9-12-2009 spells trouble for Republicans and Democrats alike)

[maine-iac7]

ping - mega ping

[Dasaji]

Well, there’s a pretty good argument in favor of the number of people in the Assembly: if the districts were re-distributed to become larger, fewer constituents would have access to their reps - not a good thing. Also, if the numbers were reduced, it would begin to turn into “an elitest” club where he Who Has The Most Money Gets The Seat (kind of like our Presidential Elections.)

At least this way, the more seats, the more chance that some scrappy young whippersnapper can actually win and attempt change in a positive direction.

[Publius]

This is how it started in Nebraska during the Depression. Today Nebraska has a unicameral legisature, and it has worked just fine.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Yes, but the supremacy of the GOP in NE has rarely been challenged. You wouldn’t want this in rodent-leaning states where the moonbattery could be rammed through without so much as a pause.

[Willie Green]

Looks like the petition originator, Norm Bertasavage, has defunct links for "russdiamond.org" (whoever that is), "richardsonforpresident" (Barf!) and a working link for Sojourners (connecting the dots to Daniel Berrigan) on his website.

Not much to go on.
But I think it puts him squarely in MoonBat territory.