House Democrats rolled back a few reforms that grew out of the 2005 pay-raise controversy Wednesday night, an action that drew little notice as Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed budget dominated media discussions.
"Now, unfortunately, because of these rules before us, it's a step back from reform," Republican state Rep. Bryan Cutler of Peach Bottom said Thursday night.
House Republicans, who have five fewer members in their caucus than the Democratic majority, are raising concerns about the following three changes in how legislation will be crafted in the House:
• Expanded power by the House Rules Committee, dominated by the Democratic leadership team, to amend bills that come out of the state Senate for concurrence. GOP legislators say it gives the Democratic majority the ability to dramatically gut the bill.
• Making it easier to extend debates and votes past the 11 p.m. deadline. The previous 11 p.m. rule was put in place two years ago to prevent middle-of-the-night votes while most residents are sleeping.
• Requiring what's known as a "constitutional majority" to challenge a ruling by the Speaker of the House or to allow bills to be voted on less than 24 hours after the Senate has approved them. During the previous legislative session, challenging a ruling took only a majority of House members present on the floor. Motions to suspend the rules, however, required a two-thirds majority.
Bottom line, the new rules for 2009-10 make resisting the majority much harder than before, GOP members say.
"They're trying to make (the Republican minority) effectively less relevant or irrelevant," Cutler said.
Many of the old House rules like the 11 p.m. deadline were implemented during the 2007-08 session, which saw more than 50 new members enter the Legislature, many on a government reform platform.
The reform movement had its roots in the controversial 2005 pay raise that would have increased legislator salaries by at least 16 percent until the Legislature overturned it in response to widespread voter outrage.
But a resolution put forward by the Democratic leadership Wednesday night overturned some of those reform rules. A spirited debate broke out for several hours as the GOP attempted to stop the resolution, but it passed 104-94 along party lines.
Voting in favor was state Rep. Mike Sturla, a Lancaster city Democrat who is part of the Democratic leadership team as its policy chairman. Sturla did not return messages seeking comment since Wednesday night.
Democratic leaders during the floor debate said the internal rule changes were needed to put the House on a competitive platform with the state Senate, which is dominated by Republicans.
But Cutler and several others warn the old rules were put in place to prevent bills like the 2005 pay raise from coming back.
"That's what we're effectively setting up for here, the same kind of ramrodding of bills," Cutler said. "We're really consolidating power into the majority and specifically into the leaders, because that's who makes up the rules committee. This is merely setting up the stage to put the budget and (possible) tax increases through. It's going to effectively limit debate."
E-mail: dpidgeon@lnpnews.com