Legislation recap: March 2021
April is the cruelest month, and March, it seems, the slowest
By all lights, March was a dawdling month for the legislature. Of the 292 memos circulated in the House, 67 were introduced as bills and 5 as resolutions; and of the 94 memos in the Senate, 8 were introduced as bills and 8 as resolutions. These memo-to-bill ratios—which essentially express the proportion of ideas that begin the technical process of becoming law—are somewhat lower for all of March than they were for the shorter month of February. Many of our lawmakers would tell you that’s because it is more important now not to make laws but, as the synecdoche goes, to “get needles into arms.” By this, of course, they mean getting dependents off the welfare and unemployment rolls, workers back under the usual disciplines of capital, and children back into the state-subsidized childcare, sometimes referred to as “school,” that allows their parents maximum participation in the workforce. Anyway, here’s some of the legislation that made its debut (or didn’t) in the month of March.
INTRODUCED
Repeal the death penalty.
Require law enforcement agencies to report all use of force.
Titan’s Law: establish a third-degree felony offense for directly or indirectly causing the death of a police animal “while engaged as a principal or an accomplice in the perpetration of a felony.”
Allow public schools to “prominently” display the national motto, “In God We Trust,” which “may take the form of, but is not limited to, a mounted plaque or […] artwork as a result of a student contest.” This bill is modeled on similar legislation in Kentucky, Louisiana, and South Dakota, all of which have recently voted to require public schools to display the motto.
A rules reform measure to prevent members of the General Assembly from arbitrarily blocking amendments and/or ending debate over legislation.
NOT INTRODUCED
Require independent investigations of deadly use of force by police.
Eliminate enhanced recidivist (or “repeat offender”) penalties for non-violent crimes of prostitution.
Replace the full-time legislature with a part-time legislature.
Require high school students to pass a civics test to graduate.
Remove “homosexuality” from the state obscenity statute.
Repeal the Sunday hunting prohibition. (This is one of three bills this session attempting to repeal or modify Pennsylvania’s Sunday hunting law, and one of eighteen in the last five sessions combined.)
Allow restaurant liquor licensees to deliver wine.