-- Executive Orders: Amend Article IV, to add a new section providing that any executive order or proclamation issued by the governor, which purports to have the force of law, may not be in effect for more than 21 days, unless extended by concurrent resolution of the General Assembly-- House Bill 2070 (Cutler-R-Lancaster).
-- Regulations: Amending Article III, Section 9, to exempt the disapproval of a regulation by the General Assembly from the presentment requirement for the governor’s approval or disapproval--- House Bill 2069 (Cutler-R-Lancaster).
Presentment means presenting bills and resolutions to the Governor for his action-- to sign or veto. The General Assembly then has the opportunity to override the veto by a two-thirds vote of both bodies.
Presentment was included in the state constitution approved by voters in 1967 and in state constitutions adopted before that. In fact, the text of Pennsylvania’s 1874 constitution posted by the Duquesne University School of Law also includes presentment. Read more here.
It’s the classic “checks and balances” you learned in civics class.
The proposed amendment on regulations, however, means the Senate and House can short circuit those checks and balances and merely pass a resolution killing a regulation and it goes into effect, bypassing the Governor entirely.
Speaker Cutler said an example of the kind of regulation this constitutional amendment was meant to deal with is the final regulation limiting carbon pollution emissions from power plants consistent with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
[Note: A concurrent resolution has been passed by the Senate and is now moving in the House to kill the RGGI regulations, but has not made it to the Governor’s Desk.
[Separately, the Senate passed legislation in June-- Senate Bill 119 (Pittman-R-Indiana)-- that would also block the regulations from going into effect. The bill has been in the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee since that time.
[In September, the House Environmental Committee reported out its own version of the bill-- House Bill 637 (Struzzi-R-Indiana)-- which is now Tabled in the House.
[So no legislation made it to the Governor’s desk through the Republican House and Senate this year, but in September 2020 the Senate and House did pass legislation to kill the RGGI rules and Gov. Wolf vetoed it. Read more here.
[There was no attempt at a veto override.]
A constitutional amendment has to pass two sessions of a General Assembly and it is then presented to voters for an up or down vote.
In the special case of constitutional amendments, the House and Senate passes them, but the Governor does not have the opportunity to sign or veto them-- a clear advantage in this case for Republicans.
Legislation
Republicans had a series of bills over the years to kill regulations in different ways, including most recently-- Senate Bill 32 (Phillips-Hill-R-York), Senate Bill 520 (DiSanto-R- Dauphin), House Bill 72 (Keefer-R-York) which would have allowed the Senate and House to kill regulations by doing nothing.
However, none of them even made it through both the Republican Senate and House and onto the Governor’s desk.
Net Effect
Republicans are trying to build on the success they had in the April Primary Election where voters approved a constitutional amendment to limit a Governor’s declaration of an emergency to 21 days, unless it is extended by a vote of the Senate and House.
It’s ironic that the provisions added to the constitution by voters in April first specifically requires all resolutions passed by the House and Senate to be presented to the Governor to sign or veto, except for the ones related to disaster emergencies.
Now Republicans want to extend that exemption to resolutions killing regulations.
They are also using the constitutional amendment process to make up for the fact they could not accomplish some of their policy objectives through the normal legislative process with its checks and balances-- even when Republicans control both the Senate and House.
They couldn’t get what they wanted, so they are changing the fundamental rules that have been in place since 1874.
Together, the net effect of these and other proposed constitutional amendments, including another to elect state court judges by voting districts, is to make the Republican Senate and House the “be all and end all” in making any policy decision in state government without fear of being overridden by any other “co-equal” branch of government, including the courts.
So much for civics and checks and balances!
NewsClip:
-- Spotlight PA: Republican House Speaker Wants To Greatly Expand Lawmakers’ Power Over Governor, Executive Branch
[Posted: November 9, 2021] PA Environment Digest
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