Did you know that Republicans who control the PA Senate are sitting on close to 400 bills passed by the House for which they have chosen to do nothing? They won’t even bring them to a committee for discussion, let alone a vote!
The state Representatives who were invited to share their experiences at Represent PA’s July 17 breakfast briefing, expressed their ongoing frustration with this fact. Reps. Tarah Probst, Lisa Borowski, Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz and Carol Hill-Evans, all Represent PA-endorsed incumbents, talked about how much the Legislature was able to accomplish this past session with only a one-person Democratic majority in the House – like providing historic investments in K-12 public schools and expanding the Property Tax Rent Rebate to more seniors – and how much more could be done if more Democrats win this November.
Here’s a sampling of the bills that came out of the PA House this session that are languishing in the Senate:
- Raising the minimum wage (HB 1500)
- Guaranteeing the right for workers to organize and bargain collectively (HB 950)
- Protecting birth control access (HB 1140)
- Protecting Pennsylvanians obtaining reproductive health services (HB 1786)
- Protecting marriage equality (HB 2269)
- Protecting LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians from discrimination (HB 300)
- Allowing counties to count mail-in ballots before Election Day (HB 847)
- Expanding universal background checks on all firearm sales (HB 714)
- Creating extreme risk protection orders (“Red Flag” legislation) to reduce gun violence (HB 1018).
These bills, and the hundreds of others that the PA Senate refuses to consider, will die at the end of the current legislative session in December. This is why we need to flip the PA Senate from Red to Blue. If we can accomplish this in the next election, as well as maintain or increase the one-person Democratic majority in the House, these bills can be resurrected and legislators can start doing the hard work that voters expect of them – crafting, debating and voting on legislation with their colleagues from both sides of the aisle – improving the lives of their constituents.
Represent PA invests in strong women incumbents and first-time candidates for PA’s State Legislature who oppose the GOP’s do-nothing obstructionism and who come to Harrisburg to do the work that’s required to make things better in our state. Join us in this effort.
– Karen Gelmen, Represent PA volunteer
