An Our Philadelphia Blog Post
Waiting for Harrisburg
Pennsylvania's state budget has been late for seven years in a row, culminating in last year's 101-day stalemate that left many Philadelphia-area nonprofits without funding to continue vital social services, and no way of knowing when funding might be restored. Why do our state legislators have such a hard time finding common ground? One reason for the partisan gridlock in Harrisburg is our system of partisan redistricting, in which districts are drawn to be heavily Democratic or heavily Republican. Such districts tend to produce hyper-partisans who, surprise, surprise, have a hard time getting along with members of the other party. You could even say that our current method of redistricting turns elections on their heads by letting elected officials choose the voters they would like to have in their districts.
In addition to redistricting reform, Gov. Rendell and Common Cause have endorsed a more immediate solution--dock legislators of their per diems ($163 a day) for every day that the budget is late. Legislators may argue about how much to spend on various social programs, but a complete shutdown of some programs because of budgetary bickering is outrageous.
[HTML_REMOVED]test[HTML_REMOVED]