I OFTEN WRITE ABOUT WHAT ISN’T HAPPENING IN HARRISBURG. Call it the cynics’ disease. But the gears of government do grind away behind the scenes, producing meaningful laws that deserve attention — even though they don’t solve the commonwealth’s long-running issues with education. Or housing. Or transportation. Or energy. Or ethics. Or … OK, you get the gist!

Take a new law, sponsored by state Sen. Christine Tartaglione (D., Philadelphia), that creates a path for Pennsylvania to update its accessibility building codes through an administrative process, rather than through legislation. 

The state hasn’t updated these regulations, which govern critical issues such as when elevators or ramps must be installed or how large bathrooms should be to accommodate a wheelchair, since a 2022 Commonwealth Court ruling.

The judges in that case found that the General Assembly had unconstitutionally “delegated unfettered legislative authority to a private entity to establish accessibility standards.”