Chester County Medicine Fall 2019 - 10

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Long Odds in the
Legislative Process

S

BY LARRY LIGHT

ports are an important part of our lives where your success rate
is a traditional measure of competence. If you bat .300 (30%)
or make free throws at a 90% rate you're doing pretty well,
maybe even an all-star. In our data driven era quarterback ratings
and wins above replacement are important statistics. Politics is a
little different. In politics the target is a success rate of 50%. You
need to convince 50.1% of the citizens who voted that you are the
best candidate. When you are elected and serve in the General
Assembly, the baseline for success is set by the Constitution. To
approve legislation the numbers are 102, 26 & 1. You need 102
votes in the House and 26 votes in the Senate, one more than half
of the members in each chamber. And then you need a 100% win,
the approval of one individual, the Governor, for a bill to become
law.

real change. The reality is that they don't see very many of the bills
that are introduced enacted into law, less than 10% of them in fact.

But you hit a bump in the road in calculating a legislator's
success. One of the two principle things that legislators do is
advocate for their constituents. Legislators help people in their
districts solve their problems with governmental bureaucracy.
Other than testimonials from grateful constituents there's very little
that can be done to measure success on the constituent advocacy
ledger. But the legislator who isn't very good at listening to
constituents and engaging on their behalf probably won't remain in
office for very long.

On the other side of the ledger, those who are intent on
stopping a bill from being enacted into law have at least a dozen
opportunities to aggressively seek changes designed to weaken the
bill or defeat the bill before the final action, the Governor affixing
his signature to approve or veto the bill. One of the reasons that
so few of the bills that are introduced become law is that if you
oppose a bill, you only have to stop it one time. Those who support
passage have to successfully clear each and every hurdle in the
process. They've got to hit a home run and then touch all the bases
for it to become law.

The second principle duty of Senators and Representatives is
to pass legislation and that can be measured. The intent of each
new law is to right a wrong that has existed in the past, create a
new opportunity for a progress throughout the Commonwealth or
modify an existing law that is not accomplishing the perceived or
desired outcome. Health care legislation that relates to physicians,
who have an unrestricted license to practice medicine, runs the
whole gamut. Physician interests spend a great deal of energy
opposing legislation that would change the clinical balance and
negatively impact the quality of care. But there is also an important
role for physician advocates in shaping new laws that will have an
impact on the delivery of patient care. In general, legislators respect
the views of physicians on the broad scope of health care issues
and introduce a lot of health related legislation. As a result your
lobbyists are usually tracking at least 300 or more bills during every
two-year session.
Regardless of their intent, the 252 state legislators introduce an
alarming number of legislative bills, an average of 3,624 per 2-year
session over the past 10 years or a total of more than 18,000 during
that 10-year period. And they have thousands of recorded roll
calls on bills and amendments. Unfortunately, legislation is often
introduced and moved forward to a vote by the majority party to
send a message to their party base of voters rather than to pursue
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The real drama in the legislative process, though, begins after the
bills are introduced.
One reason relatively few become law is that the legislative
process is deliberative by design. The process set out in the
Constitution is designed to assure careful consideration before laws
are amended or repealed and before new laws are created. That
deliberative feature is a hallmark of the democratic process. While
it can become complicated, the basics of the legislative process are
well known. It's a process in which political momentum plays a
significant role. Legislative bills move from committee to the full
House and Senate for a reason, they have support from someone.

Not surprisingly, if you can't reverse the tide and successfully
defeat a bill in committee or on the floor, or sufficiently weaken
the language, then the next best available option is to delay passage.
Experienced political operatives can quietly point to a wide choice
of procedural stalling tactics that might extend the process for a
time sufficient to allow more reasonable points of view to prevail.
Slowing the process creates an opportunity for something better to
happen. However, at the end of the day, those for a bill and those
against it both recognize the truth in the old saying, the minority
may have its say, but the majority has its way.
So what's the success rate in the legislative process?
Over the last 10 years, there has been an average of 309 bills
enacted into law during each of the five 2-year legislative sessions.
Of the 3,624 bills introduced during each 2-year session, an average
of 8.5% has been enacted into law. That's not a very strong success
rate. Since the odds of success are pretty daunting, when a bill dies
at the end of session the tried and true remedy is to simply have
the legislation re-introduced in the next session and try again and
again until it becomes law. And when they do that the constituent
advocates, the professional associations and the lobbyists start the
fight all over again.
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Chester County Medicine Fall 2019

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