Senate News Update
From Senator Jane Earll
August 6, 2007

Technology in the PA Senate

Technology can be a great help in making state government more open and accountable to citizens.

For example, state Senate votes, debates and more can now be accessed online.  The general public can read bills and amendments, review text of floor debates, and see how senators voted. Information is also available for votes in committee and the full Senate. 

Citizens can also track who is lobbying, who individual lobbyists are representing, and how they are spending their money.  They can also see the number of clients each lobbyist has and what each one is spending per client. 

It's all online, and it's relatively easy to find the information.  There are three ways to find and view bills, as well as how legislators voted: by bill number, keyword or date.  They are listed on the official Pennsylvania State Senate website (www.pasen.gov). 

To read transcripts of debates and other activity from the floor of the Senate, go to www.pasen.gov and click on Senate Legislative Journals, which are posted by date.  (Journals are posted upon Senate approval or within 45 days, whichever is earlier.) 

To track lobbyist activity, a list of lobbyists and related information are posted at www.pasen.gov under "Topics of Special Interest."  Here, you'll find links to Department of State Lobbying Disclosure information, as well as a list of Lobbyist Expenditures, which lists activity according to lobbyists, the organizations they represent, policy areas and quarterly totals. 

Under Act 134 of 2006, the Department of State must update the list by May 1 of each odd-numbered year.  Random audits will be conducted on the registrations every two years. 

Finally, the Senate recently implemented rules requiring the placement of Pennsylvania acts, or statutes, on the Internet.  For the first time, citizens are able to search Pennsylvania's laws online. 

To look up statutes, go to www.legis.state.pa.us and "Law Information."  From there you can choose from legislation passed by the General Assembly since 1975, the PA Code, which contains agency rules and regulations, the PA Bulletin, which publishes proposed regulations and notices weekly, the Legislative Reference Bureau (for projects related to digitizing texts of statutes passed prior to 1975), and Consolidated Statutes.  You can search by year, legislative session, act number, or type of legislation. 

Pennsylvania's laws are gradually being "consolidated," or grouped by topic, into volumes called "Titles," for example, "Crimes and Offenses" (Title 18), and "Vehicles" (Title 75).  Each year, all the acts of the General Assembly receive numbers beginning with "1" as they are approved by the Governor.  The laws that have not yet been placed into a title are "unconsolidated statutes" and are identified by year and act number.  For example, the recently-passed Long Term Care Partnership statute is Act 40 of 2007.  It amends a prior unconsolidated law related to insurance companies, Act 284 of 1921.  

Unconsolidated acts may also be given "short titles" for ease of citation, so Act 1921-284 is also known as "The Insurance Company Law of 1921."  As amendments are enacted, the Legislative Data Processing staff add them to the text of the original unconsolidated law or appropriate consolidated title, and enter a footnote with the amendment date and act number after each section affected.

I am very encouraged by this ongoing effort to make government more open and accessible.  One of the state Senate's first official acts of the 2007-08 legislative session was to adopt several reform proposals that changed the way the chamber operates.  

To prevent late-night votes, voting session is now limited to the hours between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m.  In addition, the Senate is now required to wait at least six hours before voting on an amended bill or a conference committee report, and amendments are posted to the Internet before being offered on the Senate floor.  This allows legislators and the public time to understand changes in a bill before it comes up for vote. 

This is just the beginning, and much more can be done.  (For example, I am co-sponsoring legislation that would require the Commonwealth to post state contracts on the Internet for public review.)  But it's a good start in the effort to make government more accountable.  

As always, if you have any questions on this or another state government matter, please do not hesitate to contact my office directly at (814) 453-2515.