In a bipartisan effort, the Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee this week voted to table a bill that sought to ban same-sex marriage in the state constitution.
The lawmakers took the 8-6 vote Tuesday morning, and the motion to table Senate Bill 707 was proposed by Sen. Daylin Leach (D-17th Dist.), the lead sponsor of the state’s marriage-equality bill.
Leach’s motion was supported by Democratic Sens. Jay Costa (43rd Dist.), Lisa Boscola (18th Dist.), Michael Stack (5th Dist.) and Wayne Fontana (42nd Dist.), as well as Republicans Mary Jo White (21st Dist.), Jane Earll (49th Dist.) and Patrick Browne (16th Dist.).
“This bipartisanship we saw shows that civil rights and equality are not partisan issues and they shouldn’t be and historically they haven’t been,” Leach said Tuesday. “There’s so much partisanship in this country and in Pennsylvania these days, so it’s nice to have one issue, the core issue of human rights, that’s not viewed exclusively through the lens of Democrat or Republican.”
Sen. John Eichelberger (R-30th Dist.) introduced the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment earlier this year after first pledging to spearhead such a measure last spring.
Although similar bills were eventually defeated in the past two legislative sessions, the Judiciary Committee did approve the bill two years ago in a 10-4 vote, and there has only been one personnel change in the makeup of the committee since that time.
Eichelberger said he learned that the bill was going to fail before the vote.
“We knew this was coming in the last couple of days because some of the people had switched their votes,” Eichelberger said, noting that even though the table motion could allow for the bill to be resurrected before the end of this session, that’s not going to happen. “The people who voted for this were voting to kill it. That’s the realistic picture. Why they did it, I don’t know, because they are some of the people who were in support of this effort in the past.”
Leach proffered that Tuesday’s vote was one of conscience.
“This was a truly historic vote,” Leach said. “Three people have changed their minds in that time. My colleagues have been feeling increasingly uncomfortably with the idea of us as a state discriminating against an entire class of our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. As time goes by, I think more people are going to be embracing equality and rejecting this kind of discrimination so that everyone in this state can live in peace and with dignity.”
Leach seconded Eichelberger’s notion that the bill has no chances of resurfacing this session.
“There’s a theoretical possibility of it coming up again, but I really don’t see it happening,” Leach said. “Eight [votes] is a strong statement. I don’t see the advantage of bringing this up again and making everyone go through all this on both sides again when there clearly are not the votes to pass it. Even if we lost one vote for our side, we’d still be able to defeat it again.”
Andy Hoover, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, welcomed the bill’s demise.
“This vote today spoke loud and clear,” he said. “Members want to move on and address truly pressing issues for the people of Pennsylvania.”
Eichelberger said he would be interested in reintroducing the bill next session or would work with another lawmaker who wanted to serve as lead sponsor. “It may be me, it may be somebody else, but I’d be willing to do it,” he said.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].