Four for Friday: Harrisburg happenings

There was a lot of commotion in the commonwealth this week, particularly in Harrisburg, where legislators passed a variety of bills touching on everything from elections to education. 

Here’s your Four for Friday, breaking down some of the major moves you may have missed. 

House passes cannabis state-store model

Pennsylvania House lawmakers voted to approve a bill that would legalize cannabis for recreational use after a state House committee advanced the bill earlier in the week. 

The bill, House Bill 1200, would create a so-called “hybrid” sales model that would sell recreational cannabis to adults ages 21 and older through state-owned retail stores. Legalizing recreational cannabis is part of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s 2025-26 state budget proposal, and while the proposal passed the House this week with a vote of 102-101, it’s unclear if the political will exists in the Republican-controlled state Senate to get the bill to Shapiro’s desk. 

School vouchers

Whether to use taxpayer dollars to fund vouchers that allow students in low-performing public schools to attend a private school of their choice continues to divide Harrisburg lawmakers. 

The issue resurfaced this week when lawmakers on the Pennsylvania Senate Education Committee voted 8-3 to approve Senate Bill 10, which would create the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success Scholarship Program and provide scholarships worth between $2,500 and $15,000 to eligible students. 

The prime sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Judy Ward, said PASS scholarships would “empower parents to put their children in the most appropriate learning situation and find educational opportunities that best suit those needs.”

Voter ID and vote-by-mail changes

Highly debated election reforms continue to be at the center of talks in Harrisburg, where Democrats have begun to show signs of softening opposition to implementing a universal voter ID requirement. 

On Tuesday, House Bill 771 passed out of the House State Government Committee by a vote of 14-12, with Democratic Reps. John Inglis of Allegheny County and Nancy Guenst of Montgomery County supporting the legislation. The committee also voted along party lines to approve an omnibus bill that would eliminate ambiguity in Act 77 related to vote-by-mail regulations. 

Under Pennsylvania’s existing law, voters must show identification when they vote at a polling place for the first time. The new proposal would reportedly expand on voter ID requirements already in place, adding to the list of acceptable documents for ID and requiring a signed affidavit from another person should a potential voter be unable to provide acceptable proof of identification. 

The vote-by-mail omnibus bill would clarify that election officials must notify voters if their mail-in ballots have been rejected, allow election officials up to a week before Election Day to pre-canvass ballots and prepare them for tallying, and require counties to provide early voting, among other changes. 

The bills must pass through the Democrat-led House and Republican-led Senate before reaching the governor’s desk for final approval. 

Women’s sports legislation

The state Senate approved several measures this week, including a bill on Tuesday that would prohibit transgender girls from participating in girls’ school sports. The measure, pushed by the Republican majority alongside the Trump administration’s federal efforts to re-interpret Title IX rules, was approved by a vote of 32-18, with five Democrats joining the Republican majority in supporting the bill. 

The bill is seen as a non-starter in the House; Democratic leadership has said the transgender athlete debate is a political talking point and not a pertinent issue for the legislature to be prioritizing over others. The bill mirrors ones passed in the House and Senate in 2022, when then-Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed the measures that would require every state-supported school in Pennsylvania – including K-12 school districts, charter schools, and state-funded colleges and universities – to delineate all of their athletic programs by sex, and declare that those designated for women or girls “may not be open to students of the male sex.”