Report names PA’s most and least effective lawmakers – and how partisan divide impacts Harrisburg

The now months-long budget impasse in Harrisburg has many thinking: How effective are these lawmakers, anyway? 

A report on legislators’ effectiveness in Pennsylvania both confirmed existing notions and raised existential questions about who among Harrisburg’s lawmakers is getting bills across the finish line – and how influential the bills will be. 

The Center for Effective Lawmaking, a University of Virginia research institute that works hand-in-hand with Vanderbilt University, released its report on the Pennsylvania legislature last month, revealing the commonwealth’s key lawmakers and how the partisan divide is shifting inside the Capitol. 

“The thing that was striking us about Pennsylvania, relative to other states, was the degree to which the minority party was cut out of the (legislative) process, prior to Democrats gaining control of the state House,” Craig Volden, University of Virginia Professor of Public Policy and Politics and co-author of the report, told City & State. “We do see gridlock in a number of states, but the degree to which it was so partisan in Pennsylvania – and may or may not be moving forward – was striking to us.”

Volden said there was a “steady decline” in the number of minority party bills getting passed prior to the most recent shakeup in Harrisburg, when Democrats flipped the state House and, as a result, created a divided legislature with the Republican-led Senate. Using a combination of 15 metrics to calculate a Legislative Effectiveness Score, researchers identified legislation as either substantive, commemorative or substantive and significant – with bills that address policy priorities and receive media attention getting the highest ratings. 

Since 2023, when the state House flipped and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro took office with a divided legislature, Harrisburg has been trending toward bipartisanship. 

Minority-party SLES scores decreased consistently over the past decade before 2023. The report said Democratic bills in the state house dropped from nearly two dozen becoming law in 2015-2016 to just one making it across the finish line in 2021-2022. 

“That was remarkably low for Pennsylvania and remarkably low across all of the states. It basically was pointing to the minority party being cut out of the lawmaking process entirely,” Volden said. 

But during last year’s session, House Democrats, now with a slim majority in the chamber, saw more than 100 bills become law. 

“Are (legislators) recognizing that they have to cooperate, and is the nature of lawmaking different in terms of the numbers? It looks like it is,” Volden told City & State. 

In fact, recent bipartisanship in Harrisburg has substantially boosted effectiveness relative to previous legislatures. 

“A narrative that floats around out there is (a divided legislature) is going to cause less ability to govern, and it didn’t seem that way necessarily from the numbers in Pennsylvania,” Volden added. “In both cases, compared to what we saw in the term when it was fully Republican control, minority-party bills are moving through both the House and Senate at present … What we’re hoping for in the legislature is that ideas can come from anywhere, and it’s not just the majority party that has all of the good ideas.”

Ideas were flowing on either side of the aisle, according to the report. 

For the 2023-2024 legislative session, in the state House, Democratic Reps. Jordan Harris, Joseph Ciresi and Ed Neilson were near the top for the majority, while state Reps. Thomas Mehaffie, Brett Miller and Ryan Mackenzie – now a member of Congress – led the way for Republicans. 

During the same session, in the state Senate, the Republican majority saw state Sens. Lisa Baker, Scott Martin and Doug Mastriano receive high effectiveness ratings, while state Sens. Tim Kearney, Vincent Hughes and Lisa Boscola earned the top scores among Democrats. 

The report also found that Harris, while chair of the Appropriations Committee, had 33 bills receive action beyond committee, 18 bills pass the House and 15 become law. Mehaffie, on the other hand, saw five bills get action beyond committee and pass the House – and one become law.

In the Senate, Baker had 26 bills receive action beyond committee, 19 of which passed the upper chamber and 11 of which became law. On the Democratic side, Kearney had six bills receive action beyond committee and pass out of the Senate, with four becoming law. 

The report also found that each chamber’s majority party leadership takes a step back in the legislative process, at least when it comes to authoring bills themselves. 

State Senate Republican leaders Joe Pittman and Kim Ward, and state House Democratic leaders Joanna McClinton and Matt Bradford, had among the lowest effectiveness scores in either chamber. 

Volden said that while this dynamic varies from state to state, it’s not uncommon for party leadership to leave the creation of legislation to members while they engage in politicking both within and outside the chamber.

“I tend not to read much into that,” Volden told City & State. “They're effective in other ways, in terms of their leadership roles, as opposed to their own legislation that they're putting forward.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there were several lawmakers who have been “exceeding expectations” relative to their party, position and tenure in Harrisburg. Based on those metrics, Republican state Rep. Seth Grove and Democratic state Rep. Jared Solomon were the top two at legislating compared to party members with the same power – alongside state Sen. Wayne Langerholc. 

Grove, who’s “exceeding expectations” for an eighth-straight session, introduced 34 bills during the last legislative session. 

“People rise and fall, have a particularly good year or whatever. But the ones who you know are top performers, above expectations, no matter if they’re in the majority or minority party, no matter if they’re a chair or not, I’m really impressed by those,” Volden said.