With the June 30 state budget deadline looming, Pennsylvania’s state legislature is approaching its busiest time of year.
The state budget doesn’t mark the end of their work, though — our General Assembly is expected to work year-round (mostly), as Pennsylvania is one of just 10 U.S. states that’s considered to have a full-time legislature.
What Does It Mean for Our Legislature To Be ‘Full-Time’?
Our state legislators — 253 of them, across the House and Senate — meet in Harrisburg nearly every month of the year (during 10 or 11 of them, usually).
That said, the General Assembly may go on weeks-long recesses, and actual voting only occurs a few times a month — totaling to around 50 or so session days per year in recent years, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Some legislative committees meet on non-voting days, though, and legislators may spend other time meeting with constituents or attending events back in their districts.
Why Does the General Assembly Meet Year-Round?
That’s how it’s written in the state constitution: “The General Assembly shall be a continuing body during the term for which its Representatives are elected.”
It hasn’t always been like that, though. According to Spotlight PA, that language was set in the 1960s. Immediately before that, the legislature only met to handle the budget during even-numbered years, and to do other lawmaking in odd years. And between 1873 and 1959, the General Assembly met just once every two years for a three-month session.
How Are We Different from Other States?
Every state’s legislature is structured differently, and Pennsylvania’s stands out from the vast majority of others, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Most state legislatures are what the NCSL considers “gray”: Bodies where, on average, being a lawmaker equates to 74% of the time one might spend on a full-time job, and where the salary usually isn’t high enough to be a lawmaker’s sole income source.
Pennsylvania, however, falls into the NCSL’s “green” category — state legislatures where being a legislator takes an average of 84% the time of a full-time job, there are more legislative staffers, and lawmakers have higher salaries. (In Pennsylvania, legislators get paid at least $106,000 annually.) In fact, we’re actually just one of only four states that the NCSL categorizes as having a legislature that’s full-time and well paid with a large staff.
