EDITORIAL: Legislature: Not necessarily too big, but way too fat.(Editorial)

Aug. 11--THERE ARE NOW at least five bills in Harrisburg that would reduce the size of the Legislature. Since we rarely get to write the words "good news from Harrisburg," we reluctantly put efforts to pare the size of the $300-million-a-year General Assembly into the good-news category. Our reluctance is not because we believe that the 253 members of the House and Senate, the largest full-time body in the U.S., is the proper number. Nor do we think that a smaller body would necessarily imperil democracy. What keeps us from doing full-on cartwheels is that these proposals illustrate how impossible it is to expect the General Assembly to reform itself. That's because it has …