School funding, permitting at top of Pa. legislature’s 2024 agenda

The state Senate hasn’t acted on any of these bills — Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) said the Democrats’ minimum wage number, for one, was “unreasonable.”

The caucuses also split last session on a long-delayed constitutional amendment that would open a window for people to sue over sexual abuse they suffered as children. State House Democrats passed it, but state Senate Republicans countered that they would move the measure only if it were bundled with provisions to expand voter ID and make it easier for the legislature to reject executive branch regulations. Bradford said the effort continues to be a priority for his caucus.

A spokesperson for the state Senate said its leaders are primarily concerned with pushing bills in one area: permitting and regulatory reform.

Spokesperson Kate Flessner listed bills that the chamber has passed but which haven’t gotten state House consideration, including one that would require agencies to make public more information about the status of permits, one that would require legislative approval of more regulations, and one that would create a new automatic review process for many regulations.

These measures, Flessner said, are intended to cut “government red tape to help grow family sustaining jobs.”

Lawmakers will return to Harrisburg in January for a constitutionally required meeting on the first Tuesday of the year, and will also convene in the Capitol rotunda — instead of in the state House chamber, to avoid construction — on the first Tuesday in February for the governor’s state of the state address.

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