Lawmakers spent a packed four days in Harrisburg before leaving town for the holidays. Here’s what they did.
Last week was a big one in Harrisburg. The House and Senate both convened for an unusual four-day session and passed a lot of bills—so many that we weren’t able to file stories on all of them.
But in this episode, we recap some of the biggest ones.
A long fight to overhaul Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations on child sexual abuse may be over, thanks to the legislature passing a package of bills that drastically expand the amount of time people abused as children have report that abuse.
Plus, after years of pressure from advocates, lawmakers are moving to stop…themselves…from accepting so many expensive gifts.
The state House spent several hours debating, then passing, a controversial bill that would require medical facilities to bury a fetus after a miscarriage or an abortion. It wasn’t the only abortion-related bill on the docket—both chambers worked together to send a measure to Governor Tom Wolf’s desk that would ban abortions that are performed on the basis of a Down Syndrome diagnosis.
Wolf has said he would veto both.
In addition, a group of pro-natural gas legislators got together to tell Wolf he went too far in ordering the commonwealth to join a regional effort to cut power plant emissions, a moderate Democratic state senator left his party, and we bring you an update (from outside the Capitol) on election officials experimenting with new post-election audits.
And more.
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