Republican Susanna Lisotto, who's challenging incumbent Democrat James Casorio Jr. in the 56th District state House race, is not in it for the perks.

Ms. Lisotto wants to roll back legislator compensation, phase out the pension and establish eight-year term limits. She also supports a proposal to drastically shrink the Legislature to reduce overhead costs. She pointed out that Pennsylvania has more legislators than California, which has about three times as many people.

"We have a lot of overhead costs that we don't need to have and it's coming out of the taxpayers' pockets," Ms. Lisotto said.

She said she is opposed to people making a career out of politics and she wants to inject public service back into the process. She proposes making Pennsylvania's Legislature part time like Virginia's, which is only in session three months out of the year and whose members have full-time jobs outside of being legislators.

But Mr. Casorio, who has served six terms in the House, said it would be impossible to adequately serve the constituents with the sort of part-time Legislature that Ms. Lisotto proposes.

"I need more hours in the day, quite frankly, and folks have turned to our office to help them with their problems," said Mr. Casorio, 44, of North Huntingdon. "The people of this district deserve full-time representation, and that's what we provide."

He does, however, support scaling back the number of legislators and has co-sponsored a bill that would eliminate the state Senate, which would make Pennsylvania's Legislature unicameral, like Nebraska's.

Mr. Casorio said he works directly with the public through his district offices, making sure his constituents are informed of the various programs that could benefit them. He has full-time offices in North Huntingdon and Jeannette and a part-time office in Penn Township.

"I've always been a champion of my constituents," he said. "They'll come in with various concerns and sit, and we try and navigate the waters for them."

He also pointed out that reducing the size of the Legislature could increase overhead costs because each legislator would need additional staff.

Because each state House district would have to be larger, it "would substantially diminish the effectiveness of bringing state government on the local level."

Ms. Lisotto, a manager for a national hospice care provider, said she aims to bring down local property taxes and to dramatically reduce taxes on businesses. High taxes, she said, are driving businesses away from the state.

"These really are the taxes that are driving businesses out of Pennsylvania into neighboring states," said Ms. Lisotto, 50, of Penn Township. "With them goes the jobs, the young people and the revenue we could be collecting."

She added that she would like to cut back income taxes and eliminate the capital stocks and franchise tax, both of which are harming Pennsylvania commerce.

"All this reduction of taxes, it puts Pennsylvania on a level playing field with the rest of the states," she said.

Mr. Casorio said he also aims to bring down property taxes, replacing the revenue with profits from casinos.

This year, he authored legislation designed to dramatically improve conditions for dogs in large commercial kennels by mandating larger cages and annual veterinary checks and establishing new regulations for lighting, ventilation and exercise. The bill passed the House in September and is pending Senate approval.

Since he was elected in 1996, he said, he has brought in about $25 million in Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development grants for equipment for volunteer fire departments, local law enforcement and a range of other programs.

If re-elected, he said, he would continue to support local law enforcement through bringing in more grant money.