The mysterious concept known as the “home rule charter” has been blinking around the Luzerne County radar screen for several years now. Occasionally, we like to pester folks on either side of this initiative to give us a workable explanation of what “home rule” actually means. The responses have been underwhelming. Someone told us it had something to do with baseball. Or maybe it had something to do with the Magna Carta. When the smug “iPhone-guy” on the adjacent bar stool offered to look it up on Wikipedia, we quickly changed the subject.

“Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
Home rule supporters promise to deliver “sweeping change” to the structure of local government. The Luzerne County courthouse needs sweeping like Abe Lincoln needs to change his seats at the theater. Of course, the idea of “change” has been hopelessly downgraded ever since the Hawaiian-American guy trumped the old guy (and the weird Eskimo woman) in the last presidential election.⁽¹⁾ Change means different strokes for different folks. But when the number of local officials headed for jail exceeds the number of major leaguers who have pitched a perfect game, maybe change is a good idea.

But nobody said it was going to be easy. With such a complicated mess, a simple plan might be wishful thinking.

Thankfully, intrepid Times-Leader reporter Mark Guydish⁽²⁾ took the home rule plunge for us. Mark waded through the history of the various home rule agendas and emerged with a sharp, readable account:
“The Home Rule Charter being hammered out by the Government Study Commission is either a giant step toward reforming a county government steeped in corruption or a pointless reshuffling of the deck without setting up effective checks and balances to wipe out the chronic abuse of power exposed by multiple federal corruption arrests since January 2009.”

(Full Story at the Times-Leader website)

“Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss”
Home rule would replace the three county commissioners and various “row officers” with professional managers and elected, part-time council members. An architect of a previous attempt at a county charter reboot, Wilkes University professor Tom Baldino, skeptically compared the new proposal to a school board, telling the Times-Leader: “Show me there's no corruption in school boards.”

Ouch! And then he slapped the reporter on the back and let out a hardy laugh.⁽³⁾

The Luzerne County Government Study Commission has spent a year in a bunker (living solely on Cheez-Its® and Jolly Ranchers®) while fine-tuning the ballot question that will decide the fate of home rule this November.

One quick and dirty take on home rule paints a picture of county government with a measure of independence from the folks in Harrisburg. The subtext says this is a good thing, a step towards a more democratic democracy. The counter-argument is we have a representative democracy for a reason and many believe a bit of a firewall between voters and legislation is a good thing.

The situation resembles the “states rights” arguments that are invoked when a state legislation decides something the feds might frown upon. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing usually rests on where you stand about a particular issue.