The Case for Sine Die

 

As the clock winds down on the 2009-2010 Session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, all eyes are fixed on whether or not a tax on natural gas extraction will be in place by the time lawmakers retreat to their home turf for the stretch run to Election Day.

A scant two weeks of session days are scheduled between now and November 2, and all sides seem to be in agreement that there will be no lame duck session this year.  Sine die is officially dead at the State Capitol.

The question is:  why?  What is wrong with the legislature doing business after the elections are held?  After all, there are quite a few days left in November if the General Assembly wished to finish up work on a severance tax, or even jump into the transportation funding debate.

Ah, but wait.  Sine die is where mischief occurs, say good government activists.  Members cannot be held accountable when they are so far removed from their next re-election, say the sine die opponents.  Groups across the state and across the political divide have written about the evils of sine die sessions, and we won’t take up your time re-hashing them today.  For a quick refresher, check out Common Cause and its legislative reform section, or the Commonwealth Foundation’s take on the issue. 

We are going to play Devil’s Advocate for a minute and examine if – and it is a big if – sine die is actually a bad thing for the governance of our great Commonwealth.

1. The “when” is not as important as the “what.”  Let us be clear; there have been many examples of controversial bills passed during lame duck sessions.  But on the other side of the coin, bad votes are bad votes, no matter when they occur.  The 2005 pay raise vote, for instance, was a bad vote, and it was done in the middle of the summer.   But there are also many examples of good public policy that got done during post-election in sessions past.  Let’s look at this year.  What if the four Blues plans come together in November and decide they would like to work out a deal to ensure continued funding for AdultBasic, which is set to expire on December 31?  Should the legislature not come back and pass the enabling legislation, even though basic health insurance for 80,000 Pennsylvanians hangs in the balance?  The simple nature of representative democracy has shown us that elected bodies tend to work best when a deadline looms.  And no matter what anyone says, the real deadline is when the legislature goes out of existence at midnight on November 30. 

2. Voters no longer have short memories.  The conventional wisdom is that voters will not remember a vote made in November 2010 when schlepping to the polls in November 2012.  This theory, while probably accurate when most folks got their news dropped on the front porch by a freckle-faced neighbor on a bike, no long applies in this era of 24/7 news cycles and increasingly open government.   Ten years ago, roll call votes used to be available only through written request of the House and Senate Chief Clerks.  Now, they are posted online instantaneously.  News accounts of controversial votes are now quite easy to access by using this neat new tool called a “search engine.”  Talk radio blasts through the airwaves non-stop.  To think that today’s voters do not have the will or capability to hold their elected officials accountable for more than 23 months at a time is somewhat laughable.   One can make the case that voters today hold their elected officials much more accountable than ever. 

3. Retiring Members are no easier to hold accountable in June than they are in November.  Let’s face facts, folks.  If a House or Senate member decides he/she is not going to run again, simple human nature dictates that they are going to vote however they want on any issue, regardless of timing.   If a Member announces in March that he does not intend to stand for re-election, should he be prohibited from voting for the rest of the year, simply because he is no longer accountable to voters?  Or, as was the case this year, what happens to a member who loses in the Primary?  Should that Member be escorted from the House Floor since she is now, theoretically, no longer accountable to voters? 

4. The question of a full-time legislature remains.  Earlier this year, the U.S. House GOP, sensing a chance to reclaim the majority, started a push to ban Congress from voting after the November elections.  The response from the national Democratic Party was a novel one, but one that bears a look.  Why, the Dems asked, should Congress not work to earn its paycheck from November 2 to mid-January?  Aren’t members still being paid?  House members are elected to serve two year terms, not 23-month terms.  As we all know, Congress has postponed any action of expiring 2003 tax cuts until it reconvenes after the election.   But you can be sure that something will get done on those tax cuts before January 1 rolls around.

Today we are faced with the very real prospect that after much negotiation, the House and Senate may be a hair apart on a natural gas severance tax when the artificial October deadline arrives.  Should all that work be packed up and tossed aside until late January (or perhaps February, March or April) of next year simply because of the notion that November voting is verboten?

It is easy to see how Leaders are compelled to skip sine die voting because of the lingering voter outrage over pay raises, general public mistrust of government and previous perceived abuses.  The safe play is to start with a clean slate in January, for sure.  But when you boil it all down, there appear to be just as many reasons for returning to session after November 2 as there are to close up shop.

Comments

[Dave]

Well said. I'd also add that the Senate consists of members serving for four years. Their first vote on their first session day is not two, but four years away from their elections. If a House Sine Die session vote is too far away from their next election, should Senators then be banned from voting during the first two years of their terms?

While a valid argument can be made that lame ducks can vote with less accountability, you must keep in mind the fundamental point that they were elected to represent their districts during that term. If they are less than honorable and will sell their votes then they deserved to get booted out and the institution will be better off without them.