Lehigh County Health & Medicine Winter 2019 - 30

FEATURE

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.
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.

Not surprisingly if you can't reverse the tide Of the 3,624 bills introduced during each
and successfully defeat a bill in committee 2-year session, an average of 8.5% has been
or on the floor, or sufficiently weaken the enacted into law. That's not a very strong
language, then the next best available option success rate. Since the odds of success are
is to delay passage. Experienced political pretty daunting, when a bill dies at the end
operatives can quietly point to a wide choice of session the tried and true remedy is to
of procedural stalling tactics that might ex- simply have the legislation re-introduced in
tend the process for a time sufficient to allow the next session and try again and again until
more reasonable points of view to prevail. it becomes law. And when they do that
Slowing the process creates an opportunity the constituent advocates, the professional
for something better to happen. However, associations and the lobbyists start the fight
at the end of the day, those for a bill and all over again.
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.

SOLVING
HEALTHCARE'S
LEGAL
CHALLENGES.

LOCAL VALUES.
NATIONAL EXPERIENCE.
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Lehigh County Health & Medicine Winter 2019

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