A Pennsylvania House of Representatives panel on Thursday passed bills to favor apprenticeship-trained labor and pay prevailing wages in state contracting in a process Republicans blasted as illegitimate.
The House Labor and Industry Committee reported both bills to the full chamber, with all 12 Democrats supportive and all nine Republicans opposed.
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As Democrats proceeded with Pennsylvania minimum wage hike legislation on Wednesday, Republican state representatives tried and failed to amend the measure to mitigate job losses.
The bill supported by the Democrats’ one-seat House of Representatives majority would increase the Keystone State’s minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour by 2026. The wage floor would thenceforth permanently rise according to inflation.
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The Pennsylvania House Freedom Caucus (PAFC) this week issued an ultimatum to the Pennsylvania State University: Either your hospitals will stop providing puberty blockers to children or funding won’t be forthcoming.
Penn State Health operates six hospitals in central Pennsylvania. The PAFC is castigating the university-run system for “prescribing experimental puberty blockers and providing “‘gender-affirming care’ to children as young as FIVE YEARS OLD.”
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A committee of GOP Pennsylvania lawmakers on Thursday gathered in downtown Lewisburg to consider ways to make patients aware of hospital service prices ahead of time.
At the House Republican Policy Committee hearing at the Open Discourse Coalition headquarters, policy experts testified that, despite a new federal rule requiring price transparency, many hospitals still fail to accurately inform patients of procedures’ costs. Representative David Rowe (R-Middleburg), who organized the event, recalled constituents telling him they’ve faced shocking examples of pricing opacity.
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A bill to enshrine union coercion in the Pennsylvania Constitution passed the state House Labor and Industry Committee 12-9 on Monday.
The measure, identical to an Illinois constitutional amendment that Prairie State voters narrowly ratified last autumn, would prevent adoption of a “right-to-work” law saying nonunion workers can’t be forced to pay union dues. More broadly, the amendment would counteract statutes that check the power of labor organizations and, opponents fear, give public-sector union contracts primacy over state law.
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On Monday, a legislative committee passed a bill a cosponsor admits would force Pennsylvania physicians to provide treatments meant to mask a gender-dysphoric person’s biological sex.
A measure supporters call the “Fairness Act” and tout as an anti-discrimination bill passed the Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee on a 12-9 party-line vote. In a speech defending the bill, cosponsoring Representative Emily Kinkead (D-Bellevue) confirmed assertions by the legislation’s opponents that it would compel doctors to deliver “gender-affirming” medicine.
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Pennsylvania’s new House Freedom Caucus announced its initial leaders this week, with state Representative Dawn Keefer (R-Dillsburg) to chair the new organization and Representative David Rowe (R-Mifflinburg) to serve as vice chair.
Keefer and Rowe were among the 20 GOP members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to vote against this fiscal year’s budget, a compromise between the majority-Republican General Assembly and Democratic Governor Tom Wolf which increases state spending by 16.6 percent to $43.7 billion. In remarks to the press, the new caucus’s leaders complained of the extent to which government is growing in the commonwealth and promised to pursue zero-based budgeting as well as regulatory reform.
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A bill that was referred to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Finance Committee last week would amend the state Constitution to allow voters to reject any state-level revenue hike.
The legislation, introduced by State Rep. David Rowe (R-Mifflinburg), would place a question on the primary ballot regarding any new tax or fee or any new increase in such levies. Should Pennsylvanians reject a revenue increase, the legislature could attempt to override the voters but would need support from two thirds of its members to succeed.
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