In return to Harrisburg, Senate votes on women’s sports, municipal planning legislation

Senate lawmakers returned to Harrisburg this week and voted on a number of bills – some high-profile, like a bill addressing concerns around participation in women’s sports – and others that flew under the radar, like a bill seeking to create a new state financing authority with the power to issue bonds for projects around the country.

Below, City & State recaps some of the major pieces of legislation approved by Senate lawmakers this week. 

Senate passes “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act”

This week, Senate lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1293, a bill seeking to draw stronger boundaries on who can play on men’s and women’s sports teams at the scholastic and collegiate levels. The “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” sponsored by Republican state Sen. Judy Ward, would require school districts, colleges and universities to distinguish sports terms by biological sex, classifying them into three groups: those for men and boys; those for women and girls; and mixed, co-ed sports teams. The bill would also prohibit students of the male sex from playing on teams designated for women and girls. 

The legislation was passed amid an ongoing culture war over the participation of transgender athletes in athletic competition, an issue that has resulted in similar bills being passed in states across the country. According to the Movement Advancement Project, a progressive think tank, 27 states have laws on the books that prohibit transgender athletes from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity, though Pennsylvania is currently not one of them. 

Ward, in remarks made on the Senate floor this week, said the commonwealth “has not clearly safeguarded” women’s athletic opportunities. “Scholarships, recognition and the chance to compete fairly can be life-changing for our young women. This bill is about preserving those opportunities,” Ward said. 

The bill passed the Senate on Wednesday with a 30-17 vote, with four Democrats joining Republicans to support it. 

In a post on its Facebook page, Pennsylvania Youth Congress, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, called the vote “another sad moment in Pennsylvania legislative history.”

“Rather than work towards inclusion and equality in sports, our State Senate continues its fixation on attacking trans young people for political theater,” the post reads. 

Lawmakers seek to create Keystone National Finance Authority

The Senate voted 40-8 on Tuesday to advance legislation to create the Keystone National Finance Authority, an entity with the authority to issue bonds and finance infrastructure projects across the U.S. 

The bill is sponsored by Republican state Sen. David Argall and Democratic state Sen. Sharif Street, and would operate similarly to an authority created by Wisconsin that “has issued billions of dollars in bonds and generated significant fee revenue,” according to the bill sponsors. 

The authority would be governed by a board made up of appointees chosen by the governor, treasurer, auditor general and legislative leaders, and would have the power to issue conduit bonds. A legislative analysis of the bill says the state would receive fees for each bond issued. 

A study of the state’s Municipalities Planning Code

Senate lawmakers voted 46-2 on Tuesday to approve a resolution directing the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to conduct a study on the effectiveness and performance of the state’s Municipalities Planning Code, a state law that acts as a framework for local zoning, land use, development and planning decisions. 

The resolution, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Judy Schwank, states that “there are concerns that the Municipalities Planning Code and its processes are outdated and ineffective,” as the statute was enacted in 1968. The resolution directs the LBFC to examine the impact of the Municipalities Planning Code, including how the law has shaped housing affordability, local economic development and zoning practices, among other areas. 

Schwank said in a statement this week that Pennsylvania communities have “changed considerably in the nearly 60 years” since the code was enacted. 

“This study will give us an honest, independent look at how the code is performing and where the commonwealth can do better in supporting municipalities as they plan for growth, housing, and economic development,” she said. “We need to modernize our municipal planning code to meet today’s challenges.”