January Pennsylvania House Journals

While I’ve followed the online Pennsylvania Senate Journal issues fairly regularly, I’ve neglected the House. To rectify this I’ll go back to January, 2006 and work my way up to the most recently available issues. The House tends to run behind the Senate. The most current House Journals available are for June, while the Senate is into October.

The state house met as a body on six days in January, 3, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31. A few of the items that struck me as interesting:

On January 24th, pp. 11-13 of the pdf, pp. 23-25 of the print, there is a discussion of HB 1813, providing for cost of living adjustments for people who work in county mental health and mental retardation programs. Rep. Vitali has a number of questions for Rep. Kenney on the bill, and later a conversation between Rep. Cappelli and Rep. Kenney. The gist being that a general estimate on what this will cost is not available. The measure passed 194-0 with 8 excused.

On January 30th, pp. 64-75 of the print version, there is a lengthy discussion on business tax (corporate net income). Rep. Levdansky has some questions for the sponsor of HB 515, Rep. Reed. On page 64, Rep. Ledvansky says:

So again, a company that has billions of dollars of income could essentially, under this clause, have their income for a particular year reduced because of the applicability of this section of the net operating loss carry-forward. I think that is outrageous, at a time when we are grasping for revenues to fund out State budget, that we would allow such a windfall tax revenue to accrue to any particular company.”

Rep. Turzai points out that “47 states allow for the use of a carry-forward, to take your losses and apply it against a profit in the future year to reduce your tax liability. Only two states, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, cap the amount of loss you can use.” (p. 65).

On page 66, Rep. Argall takes some shots at the governor by quoting from a 4 year-old report on the business tax.

Things got a little tense between Rep. Preston and Rep. Kenney on pages 69 and 70. There is a mention of the state’s biotechnology industry on page 70. On page 71, Rep. Miller discusses how this legislation will affect small farms. Rep. DeWeese and Rep. S. Smith mix it up on pages 72 and 73. For example, on page 73 Rep. DeWeese says:

This, Mr. Speaker, is a political charade. This effort to override the Governor’s veto is belching and wheezing under an avalanche of hypocrisy.” And later, “There is no Pollyanna in here. There are no celestial political virgins in this room.”

It goes on in this and a more serious vein until page 75 when HB 515 is voted on and passes 116-0 with 10 excused.

On pages 14 and 15 of the pdf (90-91 of the print) there is discussion of proposed additional reporting procedures for abortion clinics.

On pages 27-31 of the pdf version (p. 103-107 of the print version) there is discussion of requiring voter identification.