State Senate discusses constitutional convention

Friday, February 23, 2007

By Ann Belser, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Voters in Pennsylvania could have a new state constitution to ratify as soon as the next presidential election.

But there's a lot to do if that's going to happen.

The state Senate Government Committee, headed by Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola, R-Dauphin, held its first in a series of hearings yesterday on convening a constitutional convention for the first time in 40 years.

Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, was the first speaker on the proposal at the hearing held at Duquesne University Law School. Mr. Ferlo had proposed a bill calling for a constitutional convention during the last legislative session and has introduced his bill again.

Mr. Ferlo said a constitutional convention could address legislative salaries, the size of the Legislature, "procedural issues such as lame duck sessions and the process for the introduction, amending and adoption of bills."

"While I am a relatively new member of the Senate, I have been in public life long enough to have learned that the legislative and judicial process is replete with actual as well as perceived abuse," Mr. Ferlo said. "The 2005 pay grab is merely a microcosm of the problems that have grown in many state institutions over the years by exploiting loopholes in the state constitution modified in '68, the last time the public had their chance to discuss, debate and modify our state's most important document."

Bruce Ledewitz, a Duquesne Law School professor, said if the constitutional convention did nothing else, it should trim the powers the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has taken under Article V, which suggests that the court has authority that is superior to the Legislature's.

He said the court "has shown itself capable of interpretations of the text of the Pennsylvania Constitution that confound its plain meaning and the intentions of those who drafted it."

He said the best example of that is that the constitution states that no bill is to be "altered or amended on its passage through either House, as to change its original purpose."

Yet the court allowed the pay raise in 2005 in which 22 pages of legislation was substituted and adopted in the place of a one-page bill that said no members of the executive branch could be paid more than the governor. He said it didn't help the public's opinion of the court that by the time it reviewed the pay raise, and upheld it, the law had been repealed by the Legislature so that the court, essentially, was able to turn it into a pay raise for judges.

He said the same thing happened on the gambling legislation when a 145-page bill was substituted for a one-page bill calling for background checks on horse racing applicants. The 2004 gambling legislation was passed in three days after the substitution and upheld by the court.

He said the court's rule-making has led to secret meetings in which the court suddenly changes its rules to match legislation passed.

"There's a habit of meeting behind the scenes," Mr. Ledewitz said.

"I never have participated in secret meetings, but I know they have existed," Mr. Piccola said.

"I know senator," Mr. Ledewitz said. "No one ever participated in those meetings."

Joel Fishman, the co-director of Duquesne University's Pennsylvania Constitution Web Site, gave a possible time frame for a constitutional convention which called for the current hearings to wrap up in March; the general assembly to pass an act calling for a constitutional convention by June; the electorate to vote for the convention in November; a primary election for the delegates in April 2008; and the convention to run from May through August with the final step being the adoption of the new articles from the convention in November 2008.