HARRISBURG -- They arrived here five months ago with ambitious ideas to reform state government but little sense of how slowly the legislative wheels turn.

They carried maps of the Capitol and directories with photos to help them recognize legislative leaders.

They are the 50 freshmen in the state House of Representatives.

Outsiders claimed the newbies were naive to think they could affect change in an atmosphere where a handful of senior lawmakers wield the vast bulk of power and cloak themselves in traditional ways that leave newcomers in the dark.

Now, though, an unusual combination of factors have converged to make it possible for freshmen such as Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-South Union, to advance policies that could change the way business is conducted in a statehouse steeped in tradition.

The newcomers didn't get all they wanted, such as term limits and reducing the size of the Legislature, but they helped push through other significant changes and made reform the watchword in the Capitol.

For example, legislation that Mr. Mahoney drafted before taking office in January was the basis for a recommendation by the House Speaker's Reform Commission this week to revamp the state's Right-to-Know law.

The panel also recommended a set of operating rules, which the House adopted in March. Those rules included a requirement for a waiting period between amendments and final votes; a prohibition on votes after 11 p.m.; a reduction in the Legislature's spending on itself; and an order for all House spending records to be available for public inspection.

Separately, the panel has recommended limiting campaign contributions, requiring all House members to attend ethics training and posting committee votes online.

Those proposals still would have to face committee votes and floor approval to take effect.

Capitol pundits such as G. Terry Madonna say the freshmen are having unprecedented influence in Harrisburg -- but that's relative. Previous freshmen had almost none.

"They have all these ideas about how they're going to change Harrisburg and then they get there and get enmeshed in a culture they can't control," said Mr. Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College.

"There is a surprising amount of naivete about the legislative process when you're on the outside. It's complex. It is complicated."

Still, these freshmen have been able to make headway on a few of the issues they raised during campaign season, when they ran on reform platforms.

"This freshman class has had an immense impact on the prevailing mood in Harrisburg. They changed the debate," said activist Eric Epstein of the Harrisburg watchdog group Rock the Capital.

"Although [lawmakers] haven't achieved a lot of reform, that's all they talk about. The freshmen have changed the conversation," he said. "Reform is on the table."

The best evidence of that came through the reform commission's work over the last five months.

The mere presence of four freshmen on the committee was a constant reminder that Pennsylvanians are demanding change in Harrisburg and are willing to oust lawmakers who don't bring it, said Rep. Michael Vereb, R-Montgomery, who was one of them.

"It wasn't a case of new members coming in and forcing reform down their throats, though," he said. "There were a lot of existing members that wanted this reform, as well."

"Want" is also a relative term.

Lawmakers had little interest in reform until they saw dozens of colleagues, including three of state government's most powerful leaders, get booted out of office in 2006 and replaced by newcomers with backgrounds in manufacturing and mining, not law and politics.

"These were people who came out of nowhere, who had little background in government and were simply unaware of the process until they got swept in because of voter anger over the [2005 legislative] pay raise issue," Mr. Madonna said.

The message veterans got from voters provided the real motivation for reform, Mr. Madonna said. It helps that it has bolstered the resolve of green freshmen who want to make a difference.

"Voter anger over the pay hike, the number of legislators who lost and the fact that many of them were leaders all created this environment that makes change possible," Mr. Madonna said.

Still, the changes actually accomplished so far have been modest, he conceded.

"I don't think we're seeing revolutionary or earthshaking reform," he said. "Is it really radical to say we're not going to vote at 2 a.m. anymore? Is it radical to say we're going to let people know 24 hours in advance what we're going to vote on and we might even put this [legislative] stuff online? Give me a break. There's a huge expectation these things would be occurring anyway."

Mr. Epstein agreed, saying the commission "fell short of its promise."

"The priorities of the people of Pennsylvania were term limits and reducing the size of the Legislature, and the committee failed to act on those priorities," he said. "They gave the people of Pennsylvania a reform appetizer. We want the whole meal."

The reform commission rejected or failed to consider several substantive proposals: term limits, reducing the size of the 253-member Legislature, establishing a merit-selection process for judges and changing the procedure for redrawing legislative districts.

"They haven't tackled the tough issues or done the heavy lifting," Mr. Madonna said. "They pulled the easy chestnuts from the tree."

Commission members, though, insist their work has been substantial.

"The legacy of this commission is we have changed the dialogue in Harrisburg and really opened up the conversation on reform," said its co-chairman, Rep. Josh Shapiro, D-Montgomery.

The commission's work is done, but that doesn't mean an end to freshmen's reform efforts.

"I ran [for office] to make a difference and that's still my intention," said Mr. Mahoney, who is continuing to work toward passage of his open-records legislation.

"This gives me a platform to get started on. If we can get open records done, maybe we can get property taxes taken care of," he said.

"You can't multi-task and do everything at once. You take one big issue at a time."