Hopes for bipartisan cooperation in Pennsylvania were cast into doubt recently with a move by Republican leaders to limit Democratic power — one that may have been spurred by anti-LGBT sentiment.
Last week, Rep. Dan Frankel (D-23rd Dist.) offered two amendments that would have expanded state ethics and lobbying-disclosure laws to also apply to domestic partners. During a Rules Committee hearing Jan. 27, however, Republicans approved Majority Leader Mike Turzai’s measure that would reduce the number of Democrats on legislative committees and allow amendments to be tabled, which could enable the majority party to completely quash Democratic amendments. Currently an entire bill, not just an amendment to a measure, must be tabled.
Turzai’s rules changes were slated for a vote on Jan. 31, but didn’t occur.
Turzai restricted debate during last week’s committee hearing, repeatedly cutting off Democrats’ attempts to challenge the measures and leading to an outcry of boos and shouts from Democrats, who eventually walked out during the roll-call vote.
Frankel’s amendments came up for a vote on Monday but failed, along with several other Democratic amendments, as Republican leaders invoked procedural votes on their “germaneness.”
Frankel proposed adding “domestic partners” to HB 103 — which seeks to strengthen fines associated with lobbying-disclosure violations — and HB 109 — which bans legislators from creating or maintaining a state-funded nonprofit and that, under Frankel’s amendment, would also prohibit lawmakers from acting as principal in any transaction involving the state in which the member’s domestic partner has a substantial economic interest.
“You basically have this loophole that you can drive a truck through,” Frankel said. “You’ve got about 270,000 domestic-partner relationships in Pennsylvania that are exempt from state ethics and lobby-disclosure laws and that’s outrageous. How can that be justified? And why? Because my Republican colleagues are uncomfortable with the term ‘domestic partner.’”
Frankel noted that, had his amendments been adopted, it would have marked the first time that the term “domestic partner” was incorporated into state law.
Frankel, who has spearheaded efforts to include sexual orientation and gender identity into the state’s nondiscrimination law, said he had “no doubt” his amendments motivated the fracas in the Rules Committee and the effort to restrict Democrats’ ability to offer amendments.
“Reading between the lines — and also the fact that the Majority Leader’s staff called me [Jan. 31] trying to figure out how to get me to back off these amendments — I think these amendments were the driving force behind the Republican caucus acting as they did,” he said.
Turzai spokesperson Steve Miskin called that assertion “bull” and “absurd,” contending that the domestic-partner measure should have been a stand-alone bill.
“The Speaker and the Leader made it really clear in talking to the Democratic leadership that they’re trying to ensure that bills be limited to a single subject. This was a law to strengthen lobbying laws, and Rep. Frankel’s amendment was defining domestic partners,” Miskin said. “Is there a loophole in this law? Very possibly, but that’s something Rep. Frankel should submit into a separate bill to go through the committee process.”
House State Government Committee Minority Leader Babette Josephs (D-202nd Dist.) agreed that the domestic-partner amendments touched a nerve.
“I’d just have to say to the LGBT community that they are more powerful than they even know,” she said. “It’s astounding to me that Republicans took the risk of getting beat up across the state — which is what has happened — by trying to return us to the bad old days before we did any reform. All of that based on this little amendment, just a few words, that mentioned domestic partners.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].