HARRISBURG, Pa, WENY-- I posed a question to several Pennsylvania legislators in December. 'If you could describe 2023 legislatively in one word, what would it be?'

“One word would be chaos.” said Representative Clint Owlett (R) of district 68.

“I think it was a rather difficult year," said Representative Tina Pickett (R) of district 110.

“It wouldn’t really be one word- it would be a hyphen word; organized-chaos is what I would say," shared Representative Ryan Bizzarro (D) of district 3.

Last January, Pennsylvania started their 2023/24 legislative session with a new governor and a party tie in the House of Representatives. It was not until a February special election that Democrats became the majority party in the House... a first in over 12 years.

“It’s a different role that you play whether your majority or minority," said Pickett. "There’s different things that you are in charge of in the process. So it was a big learning experience for both sides this year because it had been a while since that happened.” 

With the Senate still holding a Republican majority, the Government had to manage friction between the two bodies.

“It stalled a lot of legislation. It kept a lot of things from happening because we just didn’t get to the point we could negotiate well.”

The 2023 budget passed a month late. Some of the most divisive policy opinions surrounded education, Republicans wanting funding for lifeline scholarships that Democrats oppose. By the end of the year, Governor Josh Shapiro signed 66 bills into law, below average compared to recent Pennsylvania governors before him. 

As 2024 starts, local leadership hopes for more legislative progress.

“Being in the majority and as a policy committee chair, we got to actually move and shape policy that came out of the House of Representatives," said Bizzarro. "And we sent nearly 250 bills to the Senate. What I really wish now is that the Senate would have a few more session dates and take up the legislation that we sent over there because there are a lot of things that the Senate has that delivers for everyday Pennsylvanians.”

Specific to northern Pennsylvania, Representative Owlett shared hopes for action relevant to the area.

“We were working on a lot of issues around flooding in our region," said Owlett. "We drafted a ton of bills last year, got them through the House, didn't quite make it through the Senate last year. This year, Senator [Gene] Yaw introduced a couple of those bills in the Senate, so he got those through the Senate. We are sitting on them in the House. We're continuing to raise those issues so hopefully it would be really great to see those moving forward."

Across party aisles, legislators are concerned with the percentage of young Pennsylvanians leaving the state, and many methods and ideas have been raised as ways to keep the state desirable for younger generations.

Tuesday, January 2nd, the House of Representatives and Senate will go into session for the first time in 2024.