Legislative Actions in Pennsylvania Hurt the Economy & Threaten Democracy
On February 2, 2022 the Back to Business PA campaign gathered business owners, employees, and community leaders to discuss why fair, accessible elections matter for businesses and their communities. The current state of political dysfunction in the Pennsylvania State legislature is preventing the Commonwealth’s private sector from recovery and distracting leaders from the issues that matter most to Pennsylvanians.
In our PA Election Reform: Why Business Should Care webinar, business leaders from across Pennsylvania and national election experts made the case for why business should get involved in protecting democracy. They included Jabari Jones, president of the West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative; Elizabeth Howard, senior counsel for Democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice; Susan Gobreski, director of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania; and Ethan Demme, CEO of Demme Learning.
Jabari Jones kicked off the event by outlining the urgent need for the Pennsylvania Legislature to focus on economic recovery. He stated, “In West Philadelphia alone over 13,000 jobs disappeared, and even today only 45 percent of those jobs have returned… When we look to Harrisburg, we see a lack of action and a lack of focus. Instead, our legislature is spending time making it harder for people to vote.”
Jones continued to make the economic case for the PA General Assembly to get back to business. “The legislature banked over $7 billion in relief money and postponed debates on ways to spend that. They postponed debates on supply chain issues, rising gas, shipping prices, while businesses dealt with uncertainty around COVID restrictions… Meanwhile, the legislature is asking cities and counties to spend upwards of $40 million in audits on an election that has already been certified twice.”
National election law expert Elizabeth Howard noted how important mail-in voting is for eligible voters in Pennsylvania and said, “Not very long ago in 2019, Republicans and Democrats in Pennsylvania came together to pass Act 77, the most substantive election law reform bill since the 1930s… This law allowed all Pennsylvanians to vote by mail. People on both sides of the aisle thought that Act 77’s common-sense reforms were necessary and good for all Pennsylvanians.”
Howard continued, “The legislature is not tackling issues important to Pennsylvania residents. I can tell you what the legislature has been spending a lot of time doing: rehashing the 2020 election. The election was 1.5 years ago and the winner of that election has assumed office… yet the PA Legislature continues to invest time and a lot of money on hearings and efforts to obtain personal information about the state’s voters.”
Susan Gobreski followed with a thorough overview of Pennsylvania’s current election legislative landscape and incorporated key reasons why business should care. Gobreski said, “A big trend in Pennsylvania right now is to legislate by constitutional amendment. Because we have a system of checks and balances, where the legislature has to pass a law and the governor has to sign it, some of the legislation that has been passed, has not been signed by the governor.”
Gobreski mentioned a troubling development where “the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee has subpoenaed a great deal of private voter information, including drivers license numbers and parts of Pennsylvanians’ social security numbers… This means the Senate committee was looking to investigate individual voters.”
Ethan Demme, owner of Demme Learning, an education publishing company based in Lancaster, PA with 63 employees, outlined his views on why voting is important as a small business owner. Demme started, “The fact that we are having this conversation should be a wake up call to most small business owners.”
“We are entering a new era. Business wants stability and a set of rules that everyone can follow. We want to make products and sell them to our customers. We want free markets and rule of law. I’ve had personal conversations with business leaders in Lancaster who are afraid to take a stand for democracy because they know there will be retribution from elected officials. We are at the point where people are scared to volunteer for government positions due to potential retribution.”
Demme outlined four things his company does to support his employees’ right to vote.
- Stay nonpartisan
- Pay employees paid days off to take time off to vote or be an election judge
- Regularly share nonpartisan voter registration and polling place information, while sending reminders to vote
- Provide a wide range of voter guides from every partisan angle to inform and engage.
The Back to Business PA campaign is a partnership between the West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative and Business for America to encourage the Pennsylvania legislature to course correct. It’s time to abandon undemocratic measures that have taken so much time, energy, and taxpayer dollars to investigate a verified 2020 election, and focus instead on helping people and businesses drive our economy forward.
To learn more and sign our letter to the PA legislature, please visit the Back to Business Pennsylvania website.
