Pennsylvania Legislative Session Seems to be Over

by KYW's Tony Romeo

The Pennsylvania legislature has ended its two-year session, sort of.

Officially, the two-year legislative session doesn’t expire until the end of November. And the state House actually has four session days on its calendar after the election. 
 
But major issues such as Governor Rendell’s health insurance proposal and mitigation of expiring electric utility rate caps won’t be addressed because the Senate will not be in session after the election.

Last week, Senate majority leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware and Chester counties) sent a letter to House Democratic leaders, offering to add session days before the election:

“Emphasized it in a letter simply because our members need to schedule in advance, so if they’re going to be called back into session between now and November 4th, we need to that with some notice to members.”

But so far, Senate Republicans say they’ve gotten no response to their offer. They say they won’t come back after the election because so-called lame duck sessions take place at a time when members are less accountable to voters (read previous story).