Reasons why one House in Harrisburg is better than two

Guest Column By Rich Grucela

For the past few years, reducing the size of the Pennsylvania Legislature has been among the several reform measures proposed. And The Morning Call published a Point/Counterpoint on the topic on Sunday.

As a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, I introduced legislation calling for a return to unicameralism by eliminating the state Senate.

My bill would have retained the current House membership of 203 with four-year terms, instead of the current two-year terms, and electing one-half of the body every two years. The smaller House districts are more representative of democracy and therefore the chamber to keep, and it has been my experience that House members who run for the Senate are primarily motivated by the four-year term.

With all due respect to my former Lehigh Valley Senate colleagues, with whom I enjoyed an excellent bipartisan relationship, my experience in Harrisburg convinced me that the most effective, efficient and economical legislative reform would be unicameralism.

In fact, I believe all 48 other states should be unicameral as well. Nebraska is the only state with a unicameral body — it's been that way since 1937 — and to quote Sen. George Norris, the father of Nebraska unicameralism: "There is no need to have two chambers elected by the same people, representing the same people, doing the same thing."

Historically, states adopted bicameral legislative bodies for socio-economic reasons. An upper house was to represent the wealthy and property owners while a lower house was meant to represent the common people. Obviously there is no need for that today.

Also at one time, the state senators represented the counties as a sovereign unit, much like U.S. senators represent the entire state as a sovereign unit while members of the U.S. House represent individuals via district apportionment.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court decision — Reynolds vs. Sims in 1964 establishing the one-man, one-vote principle — made county representation unconstitutional since counties are not equal in population.

I believe there are several other arguments to support this reform, but there are two additional and important ones to mention here.

The cost savings of a unicameral legislature would be very significant, especially in comparison to other proposals that simply reduce each chamber's membership; the cost of the Legislature seems to be more of the issue than the size.

Additionally, unicameralism will limit the influence of lobbyists and special interests that effectively play one chamber against the other to obstruct and defeat legislative proposals and subsequently reduce the amount of time needed to spend in Harrisburg, an additional cost saving.

Unfortunately, unicameralism never seems to be part of the debate in reducing the size of the Pennsylvania Legislature. It most definitely should be. Pennsylvania should hold a constitutional convention and, among the reforms presented to the voters, should be a unicameral House of Representatives.

Rich Grucela is a former state legislator who represented the 137th District until 2010.