Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
A summer filled with gun violence has given way to an autumn of frustration for many Pennsylvania lawmakers who want to do something about shootings, and some think it’s time to pull a political end-around to shake things up.
A popular bill that has stalled in a legislative committee would allow for the temporary confiscation of firearms from people deemed to show “red flag” symptoms of being in crisis.
A logical next step, some bill supporters say, is a maneuver called a “discharge resolution” which, if approved, automatically plucks a bill from a committee where it has stalled.
“We need to try every tactic we can,” said state Rep. Leanne Krueger, a Delaware County Democrat who supports the bill.
In the General Assembly, when a lawmaker files a bill, it typically gets assigned to a committee. Veteran lawmakers who lead the committees have the greatest say-so in which bills thrive and which wither away.
A so-called “red flag” bill, offered by Republican state Rep. Todd Stephens of Montgomery County, has stalled in the House Judiciary Committee. Its chairman ― Rep. Rob Kauffman, also a Republican ― has declared that his committee is done with gun control legislation for the session.
Irritating to leadership
The Morning Call reviewed online state records of the past 50 resolutions attempting to “discharge” bills from committees in both the House and Senate, dating back 11 years.
Of that number, only one ― a 2017 resolution to shake up a bill that put a severance tax on natural gas production ― went to an actual vote in the House. The resolution was defeated, 115 votes to 83.
The bill put forth by former state Rep. Kate Harper of Montgomery County never became law.
“The committee chairs don’t like [discharge attempts] because it gets around their power,” said Harper, a Republican who lost a re-election bid last year. “They are tough votes, I think, because the party leaders will say to all the committee chairs, ‘This is an assault on your right to control anything.’”
But the point of a discharge resolution is not so much to bring about a vote on it as to boost the profile of a stalled but popular bill, said Republican state Rep. Garth Everett, who chairs the State Government Committee.
“The hope is ... there are a significant number of people who are interested,” Everett said. In 2017, before he became a committee chairman, Everett supported a discharge resolution to shake free a bill concerning costs that cut into property owners’ gas royalty checks.
A discharge resolution filed in the Pennsylvania House is handled in different fashion than the corresponding maneuver in the U.S. House or Senate. In Washington, D.C., a “discharge petition” signed by the majority of members of the House or Senate triggers an automatic floor vote by the entire body.
But in the Pennsylvania House, the process is more complex. Pursuing a discharge resolution includes getting 25 supporting signatures and notifying the House speaker of the intention to “call up” the resolution while the House is in session.
Even then, said state Rep. Pete Schweyer, a Lehigh County Democrat, the Speaker of the House has a lot of latitude in determining what happens next. Schweyer called the resolutions an “archaic parliamentary practice” that has value in calling attention to bills backers believe have broad support but are being thwarted.
Referring to Republican control of the Pennsylvania House, Schweyer said, “When you are in the minority party, you only have so many tools at your disposal.”
Gun violence rampant
While lawmakers were away from Harrisburg on a summer break of more than two months, stories about shootings appeared regularly in local and national news.
They included the gun killings of 22 people in El Paso, Texas, on Aug. 3 and nine people in Dayton, Ohio, the following day. Dozens of people were shot in Allentown over the summer.
A Franklin & Marshall College poll released in August found 47 percent of respondents strongly favored creating more laws to regulate gun ownership, while 23 percent were strongly opposed.
In Harrisburg, the so-called “red flag” bill would establish Extreme Risk Protection Orders as a way for family members to ask a judge to hold a hearing to determine whether a person is in crisis and should be temporarily disarmed.
It is viewed by some lawmakers as perhaps the most passable piece of gun violence-related legislation. At least 13 other states have adopted similar laws.
And, it is one of four gun violence-related legislative initiatives Gov. Tom Wolf has identified as priorities. The others are universal background checks, safe storage, and mandatory reporting of lost and stolen guns.
Late last month, though, the House Judiciary Committee concluded a meeting on related bills without acting on the “red flag” bill.
Kauffman declared it would not consider any more such bills for the rest of the session. The red flag proposal, he said, is “really an anti-gun push.”
Instead, Kauffman said, more attention should be paid to a bill of his that would require people who are involuntarily committed to a mental health facility to surrender any firearms within 48 hours of release.
Current law, Kauffman said, allows the surrendering of firearms by such individuals to stretch out over 60 days. The bill was approved by the Judiciary Committee.
Kauffman’s action was called a “blockade” by Wolf and has been decried by Democrats.
Too early for tactic?
Stephens, the red flag bill’s prime sponsor and a former prosecutor, said the bill is entirely data-driven and passage would likely have a positive impact on suicide numbers, among other things.
He said 993 people died by suicide in Pennsylvania in 2017 using a gun.
Asked about the wisdom of a discharge petition to shake the bill free of Kauffman’s committee, Stephens said such a move would be premature.
The bill, he said, will gain momentum over time through word of mouth and the sharing of data.
In Harrisburg, state Rep. Mike Schlossberg, a Lehigh Democrat who has signed on to a number of discharge resolutions, said the “red flag” concept is overwhelmingly popular. Rep. Melissa Shusterman, a Chester County Democrat in her first term, said that when she went door-to-door campaigning, there was strong interest in such a law.
State Rep. Perry Warren, a Bucks County Democrat in his second term, said the ability of a committee chair or the House speaker to stall a widely popular bill is a “systemic” problem.
Concerning the “red flag” bill, Warren said, "I would love to see a discharge resolution be the mechanism that gets this bill to the floor of the House."
Morning Call reporter Ford Turner can be reached at 717-783-7305 or fturner@mcall.com