I'm only going to talk about one piece of Lynn Swann's "Reform" package - the idea of having a 72-hour waiting period before a governor could sign a bill that passed both houses of the legislature.
Are you kidding me?
I had to figure out the logic on this one. Why would a candidate for governor want to put pressure on himself if he were elected governor? Think about that for a moment. If a bill were passed, and people found out that it was a horrible bill, why would a governor want all the griping?
Then I realized what was going on - look at the people Lynn Swann has advising him - many come from legislative jobs and will go back to working for the legislature after the election.
Now it makes perfect sense - they don't want to have the legislature take the heat on a bad bill, let the governor deal with it.
The problem isn't with how much time a governor has to sign or veto a bill. Rendell shouldn't have signed the pay raise bill into law, but you can't fault him for not following proper protocol and working within the correct constitutional functions of his office.
The problem is with the legislature. It was the legislature that ignored the constitution by passing the bill with no debate in the dead of night. If the legislature actually respected the document they swear to defend and uphold, the public would have found out about the bill, and ensured that the bill would have been defeated - it would have never made it to Rendell's desk in the first place.
My advice to Swann - you've got people advising you that are more interested in their own future rather than your own - dump them - you've been had.
PennLiberty
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