Granted, on this side of heaven, we will all be disappointed at one time or another with each other. But I am baffled as to why our allies in the fight to protect marriage in Pennsylvania made the decision to table the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) in the Pennsylvania Senate.
Just before the Senate vote was to take place on Tuesday, May 6, House Speaker Dennis O'Brien contacted Senate leaders and told them that if the MPA passed the Senate, he would assign the bill to a House Committee chaired by Babbett Josephs, who would sit on the bill and not run it.
Reportedly, the Senate Republicans then went into caucus. With the consent of the prime sponsor, Michael Brubaker, and also of PA for Marriage, the PA Catholic conference and the PA Family Institute, the caucus voted unanimously to table the MPA with the pretense of giving the grassroots time to lobby the House.
This simply doesn’t work. Lobbying the House while the bill sits in the Senate does nothing. Now, the House can claim that they can’t vote on a bill that is stuck in the Senate, and the pressure is off of the Senate to pass the bill. House Speaker O'Brien has learned that he can bluff the Senate into inaction without any political repercussions.
The good news is that the lobbying effort to pass the MPA in the Senate has resumed.
Call your State Senator and ask for 3 votes:
YES on removal of SB 1250 from the table
NO on Vance amendment
YES on SB 1250
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