This is a big election year for Pennsylvania. All 203 state House seats and 25 of the 50 state Senate seats will be filled this year, as will the offices of state attorney general, treasurer and auditor general.
While most of the political oxygen is being consumed by the presidential campaign, Pennsylvania voters will soon wish that more time and thought had been focused on fielding more candidates for their own Legislature.
At a time when the state has no completed budget eight months into the fiscal year, when 52 percent blame it on the Legislature (Franklin & Marshall College poll, January 2016) and when two-thirds say Pennsylvania is going in the wrong direction (same poll), people who want to “throw the bums out” won’t have a chance.
That’s because this year, in Allegheny County at least, where 23 House and three Senate districts are on the primary ballot, there was the potential, if both Democrats and Republicans had races for their party nominations, for 52 different contests. Instead, on April 26, there will be four.
It will get only a little better in November, when eight of the county’s 26 House and Senate districts will have a race between a Democrat and a Republican.
That’s as depressing as it is disappointing, but it’s no surprise. Apathy runs strong, and it’s hard for new candidates to run for office yet it’s easy to complain about those in power.
Plus, the General Assembly is not about giving voters a choice. If anything, its aim is to keep individual districts in the prohibitive control of one party or another. Until Pennsylvania finds the desire — and the will — to take politics out of reapportionment, the state will be saddled with non-competitive House and Senate districts, which discourages little-known challengers all the more from taking on well-known incumbents.
And we wonder why people don’t vote.
First Published: March 5, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
