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EDITORIAL: Pennsylvania shouldn’t be legislating by constitutional amendment

3 min read
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Since she was first elected in 2018, state Rep. Natalie Mihalek has advocated for the privatization of alcohol sales in Pennsylvania. The Upper St. Clair Republican is 100% on the money when she argues the current system is a musty, outmoded relic of Prohibition. It’s cumbersome, inefficient and decidedly consumer-unfriendly. It’s long overdue for Pennsylvania to at least join the latter half of the 20th century, never mind the 21st.

Mihalek has proposed putting the question on the ballot in the form of a constitutional amendment. She contends this is necessary because Gov. Tom Wolf and his fellow Democrats in Harrisburg oppose the privatization of alcohol sales. The problem, though, is that we seem to be marching toward a system where we are putting laws on the books entirely through amending the state constitution.

And, as Allentown Morning Call columnist Paul Muschick put it, “It’s a crappy way to legislate.”

Mihalek’s bid to get alcohol privatization on the ballot is just one of 70 different proposals for constitutional amendments that have been kicking around Harrisburg since the start of this session of the General Assembly. More than 60 of them have come from the GOP, and they include a plan to expand the Legislature’s power to reject executive orders and regulations; eliminating mail-in voting; eliminating statewide elections for appellate judges; restrictions on dividing municipalities in the redistricting process; eliminating all property taxes; and on and on.

The reason all these constitutional amendments are being proposed is simple. Right now, the Republican majorities in the House and Senate are unable to get their legislative wish list past the veto pen of Wolf, so they are basically making an end-run around the executive branch by trying to get all of it – or at least a goodly portion of it – on the ballot. It’s easy to see why this is so enormously tempting. All it takes is for a proposed amendment to be approved by both the House and Senate in two consecutive sessions with the same language, and then advertised in newspapers across the commonwealth. Republicans were successful in the spring limiting the powers of the governor in an emergency when it was put on the ballot, so why not do it again and again and again?

Right now, the GOP may believe they will hold majorities in the General Assembly until the sun flickers out, but it’s not inconceivable that one day Democrats will hold majorities and try to work around a Republican governor by, yes, asking voters to consider a flood of constitutional amendments. What is done today to the Pennsylvania constitution could just as easily be undone by shifts in control tomorrow.

Khalif Ali, executive director of Common Cause PA, pointed out, “The General Assembly is allowed to select the issue, select how it’s framed and then ask people to vote on that.”

State Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, has a better idea. Along with state Rep. Ryan Bizzarro, D-Erie, she has put forth a measure that would require constitutional amendments to be approved by both chambers by a two-thirds vote rather than a simple majority. Snyder explained that the attempts to rewrite the constitution were “slapdash” and “undemocratic.”

The Pennsylvania constitution should be something that is fixed and well-considered, not something that is written in sand.

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