On New Year’s Day, members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly were sworn in and seated. There were a few more women, some younger members, some more progressive Democrats and more moderate Republicans — but will there really be any change?
Will any one of them, or any bloc of them, pull this state into the 21st century? Or two years from now, will we still be relying on property taxes to fund an inequitable public school system? Still be paying to drive on a highway that should have been paid for decades ago? Will our roads be under endless construction, yet somehow come out the perennial worst in the nation?
Will we still be buying alcoholic beverages from a system set up after Prohibition? Will we continue to forgo billions in revenue with criminalized cannabis and no shale extraction fees? Will we still have a justice system skewed against certain communities?
Will our legislative and congressional districts remain drawn by partisan hacks? And, will we still have the nation’s largest, most bloated Legislature?
If any or all that nonsense is still in place two years from now, then no matter how you hype the new membership, it’s the same soup in a different bowl … .
George Hawdon
Arnold