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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 20, 2022 03:29 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Brett R. Miller and Rep. David H. Zimmerman |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Wording and Explanation of Constitutional Amendment Questions Prepared by the LRB |
| In the near future, we plan to re-introduce legislation (formerly HB 1201, 2021-22) that will authorize the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) to write the language of proposed constitutional amendments and the plain English explanations. Under our constitutional amendment process, the General Assembly proposes amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution and the voters get to decide whether or not to adopt the proposed amendments. Under current law, the Election Code tasks the Department of State with determining the wording of any constitutional questions that are placed on the ballot and the Office of Attorney General is charged with the duty of writing explanations of ballot questions in plain English. In recent years, many have raised concerns that the drafting of the wording of amendments and their explanations has become politicized. In order to prevent partisan influence on this process, our legislation would amend the Election Code to shift the duty for preparing the wording of constitutional amendment questions and the corresponding plain English explanations to the non-partisan Legislative Reference Bureau. This bill was introduced last year as HB 1201 where it passed out of the House State Government Committee but did not advance before the end of session. Prior co-sponsors of HB 1201 are: ZIMMERMAN, B. MILLER, MILLARD, MALONEY, SCHMITT, STAMBAUGH, GREINER, JAMES, MOUL, SCHLEGEL CULVER, RAPP, R. BROWN, PICKETT, THOMAS, RYAN, COX, ROTHMAN, HICKERNELL, HAMM, DIAMOND, MIZGORSKI, KAUFFMAN, GROVE, HERSHEY, HEFFLEY, MENTZER, JOZWIAK, KERWIN, SAYLOR, KEEFER AND WHEELAND. Please join us in co-sponsoring this important legislation. |
Introduced as HB1339