ARRISBURG — The General Assembly’s so-called “reform” class of November 2006 is losing another member.

State Rep. Barbara McIlvaine Smith, a West Chester Democrat who’s halfway through her second two-year House term, has decided not to seek re-election next year and will leave the Legislature when her current term expires in late 2010.

She will be following in the footsteps of Pittsburgh attorney Lisa Bennington, a Democrat who also was elected in November 2006 — after months of public furor over the later-rescinded legislative pay raise of 2005. Ms. Bennington decided after the 2007-08 term that life at the state Capitol wasn’t for her and returned to her practice of family law in December 2008.

At least in part due to longtime Democratic Rep. Frank Pistella’s vote for the pay raise in July 2005, Ms. Bennington defeated him in the May 2006 House primary. But she quickly tired of the atmosphere in Harrisburg, where making changes with entrenched leaders and longtime procedures is difficult.

Ms. Bennington told the Post-Gazette in early 2008 that one of her frustrations was the large size of the Legislature — which has 203 House members and 50 senators — and the resulting difficulty of getting anything done.

“Until you reduce the size of the Legislature and you make the impact of one vote count, I don’t know that one person will make an appreciable difference,” she said.

Read the full Post-Gazette article here

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