It seems the argument (from the best of intentions, by the most caring of persons) for a full-time legislature would lead to the conclusion that we also need a professional, career legislature — for who can unravel the red tape which our legislature has created but an insider who has devoted years to the process? And, in fact, this is what our current construct has produced in Pennsylvania.

Advocates of the current full-time legislature insist that the burdens of governing such a large state, with its robust agricultural and higher-education industries, require the daily ministrations of elected officials. In addition, the overwhelming flow of needy persons into district offices for “constituent services” demands such a time commitment.

Of course, the first point holds up only if you believe that agriculture, higher education and other businesses would wilt without the legislature continually at hand to primp, prune and provide nutrients for their sustenance.

So called “constituent services” seem to fall into two major categories…
1) Services which our legislatively-established departments fail to provide in an efficient, timely, or customer-friendly manner.

2) Services for needy persons, whose needs/desires, without government intervention, would fall to the individual, his family, his faith community, or his neighbors.

The former is a matter of requiring accountability for performance (outcomes) by those agencies which must exist, because none but government can perform those tasks.

The latter calls for a change of mindset about the role of government that will seem radical to some, historical and Constitutional to others.

Needy people come to their legislator because he’s motivated — by a mix of altruism and a desire for reelection — to help anyone who asks. The more that government encroaches on individual liberty/responsibility through regulation or dependency creation, the more problems it generates, and thus the more “constituent services” the legislator may be called upon to deliver.

If the argument is made that the people are paying for these services, and that’s what they want so the legislator must deliver, I don’t doubt that. Nor do I question the motives of most of our legislators in desiring to provide succor and solutions. It’s painful to watch human suffering, and instinctive to want to relieve it.

But consider the difference between a customer who is paying for a service directly, and demanding care, and a constituent who demands service which is paid for by all of her neighbors. Not all of the “purchasers” enjoy the “service” provided by legislators — only a relative handful do — but all pay. Many of the funding sources (taxpayers) wonder why government bureaucracies require elected officials to become the complaint-resolution department. By performing this function, legislators inadvertently, perhaps, insulate the functional departments from accountability for their core mission.

So, even if we disagree on the role of government, we can perhaps agree that those services which government must provide should be done competently, with excellence by those whom we hire for the task.

That said, I would suppose few legislators would willingly part with this “constituent services” function, as it curries favor with, and fosters dependency among, the recipients…who then vote.

Perhaps our state agencies should have customer service departments — or rather, should BE customer service departments — eager to fulfill their public service calling.

Then we could free up legislators to make laws and to unmake laws as necessary: this being the core function of a legislature, and requiring, as I have suggested, less than a full-time, year-round commitment.

To sum up: the solutions fall into at least three categories…
1) Reduce the role of government by returning responsibility to the individual, allowing freedom to flourish in a real-life risk-reward realm.
2) Restructure needful agencies to measure performance with business metrics, including customer delight. This may require hiring leaders of those departments based on demonstrated capabilities, rather than by virtue of their political connections with elected officials.
3) Outsource as much of the “work of government” as possible to shed the unsustainable burden of public-sector unionism, and to make service providers compete for the Commonwealth’s business. There’s not a government job now being performed by a union member which lacks a private sector analog, and could be done with excellence in workmanship and attitude.