The first real crack at shrinking America's Largest and Most Expensive Full-Time State Legislature will come Tuesday in Harrisburg.

Legislative committee meetings are generally about as exciting as the qualifying rounds of the Pillsbury Bake-Off, but a small group of senators will vote on whether to send seven reform bills to the floor for a vote.

Do we shrink the statehouse from 50 senators to 40, and from 203 representatives to 161? Or even 121?

Do we impose term limits so that no one can serve more than eight years in the state Senate and eight years in the House in the course of a lifetime?

Do we ban lame-duck sessions after the November election so lawmakers on their way to voter-imposed retirement can't vote for everything from tax hikes to unlimited free drinks in casinos?

Do we give the people the power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution, through initiative and referendum, as voters do in other states?

These four questions are among a handful of reforms before the Senate State Government Committee. Its Republican chairman, Sen. Jeff Piccola of suburban Harrisburg, wants to see all seven bills go to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

Weird thing is Sen. Piccola doesn't think any of them has much of a chance for passage.

"There are any number of ways to kill these even after they get out of committee.''

But he wants his colleagues to confront these questions, some of which have kicked around Harrisburg for decades. He has been pushing for a state constitutional convention, the first one in 40 years, to restructure the sclerotic statehouse, but often hears the argument that a convention isn't necessary. The Legislature can restructure itself.

OK, this calls that bluff. Sen Piccola, who has been a lawmaker for more than 30 years, is forcing these bills to a vote "just to show the legislative process isn't going to work.'' He hopes he's wrong, but he works in an environment where a great deal of energy is devoted to figuring out how not to vote on tough issues.

"If we get three or four of [the seven reform bills] out of committee,'' says Sen. Piccola, "that would be pretty good under the circumstances.''

Tim Potts of Democracy Rising Pennsylvania, a media-savvy coalition of citizen reformers, loves this tactic. His group has been on this Legislature like ants at a picnic since the unconstitutional pay grab of 2005, and he sees any action Tuesday as a win.

If the committee votes out some bills, they go to the floor of the Senate. The Republican leadership could still kick them over to another committee, but it's likely that lawmakers who have ducked the issues will have to confront them in the public eye.

If this committee stifles the bills, there will be justifiable outrage against a tin-eared, 253-member body. Momentum for a constitutional convention would build.

There's no telling which way this will go. State Sen. Wayne Fontana, a Brookline Democrat, is the only southwestern Pennsylvania lawmaker on this committee and he wasn't prepared Friday to say how he'd vote.

Sen. Fontana said he's all for the idea of initiative and referendum, and has co-sponsored legislation to reduce the size of the Legislature to 40 senators and 121 representatives, but still didn't want to commit his vote until he saw the bills in their final form.

"I want to see reforms, but I want them to be the right ones,'' Sen. Fontana said. "Should there be reduction [of the Legislature]? Yeah, but how much?''

Even allowing for reasonable hesitance about prematurely committing himself, that's no clarion call for reform. In Harrisburg only since 2005, Sen. Fontana was even less enthusiastic about term limits. He says he prefers calling a constitutional convention, and wonders why there is a need for a vote on reforms now.

There are always reasons to not do something if you look hard enough. The committee chairman is tired of waiting. Sen. Piccola believes the people will have to rise up again and call their lawmakers on this stuff. All these are constitutional questions that will go to the people for a vote if passed by consecutive sessions of the Legislature.

"This isn't going to be inside baseball. The pressure's going to have to come from outside.''

A downsized Legislature could save tens of millions of dollars each year and make a dent in the state's pension time bomb. Term limits would change Harrisburg as we know it. Sen. Piccola can tell you he has watched colleagues become so invested in their jobs they avoid taking stands.

"I'm the poster child for term limits. I was never for them until the past two or three years. The argument against them was that you'd throw the baby out with the bath water, and I'd like to think I'm one of the babies. But perhaps some of us babies have to go out with the bath water to make structural changes.''