Shrink the Legislature to 8

The House Democratic Leadership Letter – from Bill DeWeese (Minority Leader) and Mike Veon (Minority Whip) calls upon the General Assembly to pass “Cover All Kids” because they (DeWese and Veon) promised:

“We didn’t promise to wait three months and then bring up vague concerns about funding the program in future years, but that is what some Republicans have done.
We didn’t promise to call for a lengthy study of the entire spectrum of health insurance needs before moving forward on children’s health, as some other Republicans have done.” [emphasis added]

I guess it doesn’t matter if it is good policy or not, or even if the other 245 legislators agree, if leaders promised to push forward a plan without studying it or considering its effect in future years. This is a potential problem in reducing the size of the General Assembly, particularly if we reduce it to eight.

For the record, the “promise” referred to was: “We will be directing our key staff to work with Administration staff throughout the summer to ensure a final piece of legislation is drafted and ready for our review and passage by the beginning of October of this year.”

Technically, they fulfilled their promise – the legislation has been drafted and is ready – but it remains a flawed policy goal.