Lawmakers passed fewer laws than in other recent sessions, but leaders say quality is better than quantity

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HARRISBURG — The divided Pennsylvania legislature passed fewer laws and held fewer voting days over the past two years than in most sessions in recent history.

That dynamic is likely to persist when the new session starts in January, after an election in which Democrats clung to their narrow majority in the lower chamber and the balance of power didn’t shift in the upper one.

Despite operating in a divided government, lawmakers managed to pass some notable bills in 2023 and 2024. Among them: a major boost in education funding, new business-focused tax credits, streamlining approvals for certain construction permits, expansion of a rebate on property taxes and rent for older and disabled people, and a law regulating the health care middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers.

Lofty goals are on the table for 2025 and 2026. Democratic leaders want to strike a deal to send more money to struggling public transit agencies, which Republicans who control the state Senate have signaled they’re open to working on — as long as there’s a dedicated revenue stream.

GOP leaders also say they want to pass more economic development measures while tamping down budget growth. Democrats remain hopeful they can move a long-stalled amendment that would allow victims of child sexual abuse to sue the perpetrators, plus continue talks on legalizing recreational marijuana.

“Working with the only divided legislature in the country, Governor Shapiro has delivered historic progress and gotten big things done for the people of Pennsylvania — from real action to cut costs, reduce taxes, and put more money back in folks’ pockets, to funding for more state troopers and emergency responders so law enforcement have the resources they need to protect our communities, to historic investments in public education and economic development,” Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said in a statement.

“As he has done for the past two years, the Governor will continue working full speed ahead to bring leaders in both parties together to deliver results and do big things to make Pennsylvanians’ lives better.”

All told, the state House, Senate, and Gov. Josh Shapiro enacted 217 laws in the 2023-24 session. A Spotlight PA review of legislative productivity over the past three decades showed that it wasn’t the fewest in that time, but it was among them. Only the sessions in 1999-00, 2007-08, and 2009-10 saw fewer laws enacted.

The GOP controlled both the legislative and executive branches during the 1999-00 session, but from 2007 to 2010, state government had the same balance of power it does now: Republicans controlled the state Senate, and Democrats controlled the state House and governorship.

This session also saw the fewest voting days — scheduled days on which members move legislation — since at least 2005. There were just 101 in the state House and 103 in the Senate over the two years.

That was due in large part to the close balance in the state House and how the lower chamber dealt with vacancies. Virtually every time Democrats saw a member depart, leadership put the session on hold. That prevented Republicans from taking advantage of a tied chamber or a temporary majority.

Still, lawmakers argue that session days and numbers of laws passed shouldn’t be the only ways to assess legislative productivity.

A better metric is “the impact on regular people in Pennsylvania,” said state House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery).

He said the combined impact of the more than $1 billion in new K-12 education funding, as well as new or increased tax credits for child care, permitting reform, and property tax relief, showed that even a divided General Assembly had “got stuff done for Pennsylvania.”

Much of the legislating was done around key deadlines. In 2023, Shapiro signed half of the year’s laws over two days in December after the state House and Senate ended a long-running budget impasse.

In 2024, 50% of the bills presented to the governor were signed before or just after the state’s June 30 budget deadline. These included some of the session’s biggest accomplishments, like regulations for pharmaceutical middlemen and an omnibus liquor bill that expanded happy hours.

Both Bradford and state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) noted the clumping of accomplishments near the deadline, saying it was a product of the ticking clock that helped policymakers put their differences aside.

“I think there’s nothing like deadlines to get stuff done,” Bradford told Spotlight PA. “Sadly, that’s a part of human nature.”

Moving forward, the two chamber leaders said they think the divided legislature can figure out more areas of common ground.

Pittman already has firm requirements for some of the issues they’ll try to tackle starting next year.

On transportation, he thinks any deal to fund public transit must also include money for broader infrastructure upgrades and a dedicated stream of new revenue to fund it, such as a tax on skill games — the slot-machine-like terminals that currently operate in a legal gray area.

That, Pittman told Spotlight PA, “is what I’ve been saying for the last 10 months, and I’m increasingly thinking I’m actually the Rodney Dangerfield of the Capitol at this point.” (Dangerfield’s comedy bits were famously repetitive.)

Pittman also said he’s concerned about Pennsylvania’s structural deficit. In 2024, Republicans agreed to some spending increases in large part because a court ordered lawmakers to make education funding more equitable. This year, Pittman said, he’s more focused on balance.

“We’re going to have to look at a much more austere budget in the coming fiscal year to make sure that the rate of growth of spending gets tamped down,” he said.

Bradford, meanwhile, said the state House has been, and will continue to be, willing to compromise on the Senate’s economic priorities, as it did when agreeing to a set of new business-friendly tax credits. In return, he said, he would like to see the Senate engage more on issues like raising the minimum wage, passing the child sexual abuse amendment, and updating election laws.

“We have demonstrated that we are so past having the same stale debates,” he said. “And we have demonstrated that we are more than willing to compromise and meet halfway on issues that traditional Democratic orthodoxy would never have allowed.”

The Senate’s answer about how they’ll handle these and other issues that may pop up in the new session? Anything is possible.

“I think 2025 is a brand new world,” Pittman said.

“We have a consistent lineup of leadership that worked together over the last two years despite very deep differences,” he said. “We’ll figure out a way to do our best in that vein going forward.”

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