Pennsylvania has the largest and probably the most expensive Legislature of any state except for New Hampshire. That's not a realistic comparison, though, because the latter state pays its lawmakers only $200 for a two-year term and no per diem expenses. We pay, uh, somewhat more.

While many people have proposed reducing the size of our legislative bodies, it is by no means certain that would save any great amount of money. Defenders of the status quo - admittedly most of those are legislators or former legislators themselves - argue that increasing the amount of territory and the number of constituents each lawmaker represents would require hiring more staff members and expending more in travel expenses. Additionally, they warn it would make the legislators more remote from the citizenry.

Regardless of whether one is swayed by these arguments, there is another option - cut the budget of the General Assembly, which is proposed to be $334 million for the next fiscal year.

A group of younger legislators from Southwestern Pennsylvania has suggested doing exactly that - reducing the legislative budget by 20 percent or $66 million as a way of streamlining state government and showing the public lawmakers are serious about reform.

More importantly, they don't want the $66 million in savings to simply be redistributed elsewhere in the state budget but should go toward tax reduction.

Most members of the group are freshmen, and the rest also are relative newcomers to Harrisburg. Among them is Jesse White of Cecil Township, who is in his first term representing the 46th Legislative District. Others are Reps. Matt Smith of Mt. Lebanon, Randy Vulakovich of Shaler, Tim Mahoney of South Union, Janet Gibbons of Ellwood City and Eugene DePasquale of York (whose family's political roots are in Pittsburgh.) All are Democrats except for Vulakovich.

The legislative budget pays for such things as salaries for both members and their aides, office rents, furniture and supplies and televised "public service announcements" and newsletters that tell the world what a good job they are doing. It is notable that this proposal comes from people on the "inside," whose own spending would be reduced. But they also lack the seniiority to carry this off by themselves.

The Legislature itself holds the purse strings and would have to approve reducing its own funds. We fear their elders will dismiss the budget-cutters as upstarts if they don't ignore them entirely. That is a shame, because we don't think any suggestion to trim fat from the state budget should be dismissed out of hand.

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