We save on the cost of lawmakers' per diems, $30,000 to $50,000 a day.
Sheep are easy to herd, rarely go on the lam and the influence of special interests would decline - I can think of only a few lobbyists who'd want to take sheep out.
And, really, is there is any better argument for reducing humans in our overlarge, overstaffed, underperforming Legislature than Gov. Ed's comments while announcing the state budget agreement last Friday?
The Guv withheld specifics because he didn't want rank-and-file members (that would be, oh, 247 of the 253 legislators) to learn the details in the media.
This, of course, is because just six "leaders" negotiated budget terms. Most lawmakers had virtually nothing to do with the deal. The vast majority actually learns details only from the media.
I can't tell you how many times during the 80-day budget impasse that a nonleadership lawmaker asked me what was going on.
Now, they're asked to line up like sheep and approve a budget in which they had little input. So why not just elect sheep?
"Not all of us are sheep," says Rep. Glen Grell, R-Cumberland County, a central Pennsylvania conservative elected in 2004.
But he concedes: "Rank-and-file members have not seen one piece of paper" on the deal. "The process has been horrible," Grell says, "If ever the rank-and-file was going to coalesce behind something, it's now, and it should be budget-process reform."
Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre County, elected in 2006, is so frustrated he's holding a public forum next month with the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, the Commonwealth Foundation and grassroots activist group Democracy Rising PA on ways to improve the process.
"Nobody wants to go through this," Conklin says. "We all look bad."
I know there are sheep up in Centre County, so I ask Conklin what he thinks of my idea. "I'm not going to answer that one," he says.
