April House Journals

We're almost there!! This post is a brief recap of the April Pennsylvania House Journals. Next will be May and then we'll have to wait. The House runs a little slow and the June issues are not all available online. I look particularly for debate and discussion on issues. The bills passed are recorded in a more timely fashion in the weekly legislative updates.

In April the House was in full session on seven day, April 3rd, 4th, 5th, 10th, 24th, 25th, and 26th. The Journal for the 10th was only 2 pages long.

On April 3rd (48 pages), there was some discussion of regulations on gift cards (starting on p. 30 of the pdf version) and later on the execution of mentally ill prisoners (pp. 37-46 of the pdf version).

The Journal issue for April 4th was 237 pages long most of it listing various amendments and discussion thereof to HB 2499, a budget bill. If you can sort through it all there is mention of school funding and other related issues.

Things were much briefer on April 5th, with 22 pages. On pp. 15-19 of the pdf version (pp. 852-855 of the print) there is discussion of the minimum wage.

On April 24th, on pp. 31-36 of the pdf and 891-896 of the print, there is a debate on legislation saying a municipality must identify those lands on its comprehensive plan which it will or could be taking for recreation purposes by eminent domain. Interesting.

The April 25th issues was mostly devoted to comments on the death of former Speaker of the House K. Leroy Irvis.

There were two interesting issues on the April 26th. On pages 19-22 of the pdf (955-958 of the print), representatives discussed an amendment concerned what magistrates are allow to do. Later, on pages 31-34 of the pdf (976-969 of the print) they tackle mandatory sentencing for sex offenders.