Apr 4, 2022 5 min read

A bill in Harrisburg to ban transgender women and girls from women’s and girls sports teams has drawn widespread criticism and a veto threat from Gov. Tom Wolf.

But it’s one case in a nationwide push to establish strict sex restrictions in sports.

The Pennsylvania Bill, House Bill 972, passed a committee vote last week but has yet to get a vote in the full House. The bill – sponsored by dozens of GOP representatives – would set firm limits on school sports, assigning each competition a male, female or coed status based on the players’ genes and “reproductive biology.”

“Biologically specific teams accomplish this by providing opportunities for female athletes to demonstrate their skill, strength and athletic abilities,” the bill’s sponsors said.

It’s the latest attempt to keep trans athletes out of competitions that match their gender identity, a national campaign that secured new laws in several states just this week.

Arizona and Oklahoma passed sports laws. Utah’s legislature overrode a veto from the state’s Republican governor, who said: “Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few.”

Wolf, too, has threatened a veto.

“This is a hateful stunt brought forth by the Republicans in the General Assembly designed to deny opportunities that is both disturbing and dangerous,” his representatives said in a statement to WTAE-TV.

The bill appears to have broad support among Republicans in Harrisburg, but likely couldn’t secure a veto override. Among the 15 yes votes in the House Education Committee on Tuesday were Rep. Jason Ortitay, R-Washington, Rep. Josh Kail, R-Beaver, Rep. Michael Puskaric, R-Union, and Rep. Jesse Topper, R-Bedford.

Reps seek to stop social investment scores

A group of central Pennsylvania Republicans is pushing back against a fast-growing system used to evaluate investments’ environmental and social impacts – a system that critics fear would cut investment into polluting industries like fossil fuel extraction.

In a memo this month, Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon; Rep. Perry Stambaugh, R-Perry; Rep. David Zimmerman, R-Lancaster, and Rep. Greg Rothman, R-Cumberland, said they intend to propose a partial ban on so-called environmental, social and governance scores for investments.

The scores – issued by a constellation of advisers and agencies – let would-be investors know companies’ environmental and social costs, purportedly pushing capital toward greener and less polluting businesses.

“The absurd and anti-American groupthink of global oligarchs and wealthy elites should not determine the purchasing decisions of individuals,” the bill’s sponsors said.

The scoring system is booming. According to the Financial Times, some $2.7 trillion is managed globally in funds dictated by environmental, social and governance scores, and more than $142 billion was pumped into the sector in the last quarter of 2021.

Environmentalist critics have tied the practice to “greenwashing,” by which polluting companies can clean up their reputations without making serious changes. For the Pennsylvania Republicans, however, the rating systems pose a different threat: Wall Street control over local capital investment.

The GOP representatives’ memo is replete with Revolutionary War-era rhetoric. The proposed bill’s name – the Virtue, Liberty and Independence Act – references the motto on Pennsylvania’s flag.

The would-be bill would ban the use of environmental and social ratings as a sole condition for providing financial services or making state investments, and would ban their use as a primary reason in consumer transactions. While the proposal hasn’t been released with full text, the authors suggest Pennsylvania businesses have a right to capital investment.

“Many who espouse ESG ‘principles’ believe that access to capital is not a right, but a privilege,” the lawmakers said. “They contend that financial and business plan metrics should no longer drive investment – instead, their subjective version of ‘responsible and sustainable’ practices should.”

The proposal comes amid a growing insistence by GOP legislators that Pennsylvania embrace industries – like natural gas drilling – that are implicated in climate change. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, lawmakers have proposed a slate of bills that would eliminate regulations and encourage drilling in the name of national security.

Raising the bar for the ballot

A Democratic lawmaker said he wants to significantly raise the bar for candidates to get on the ballot, while opening nominating petitions to online signatures.

Rep. Christopher Rabb, D-Philadelphia, said he’ll propose a bill to triple the number of signatures needed for any political candidate in Pennsylvania. He also wants to add a rule requiring a minimum of signatures from every precinct in a district.

Such a rule would raise major challenges for outsider candidates and political newcomers.

At the same time, however, Rabb said he’d back the creation of an internet portal that would allow voters to sign nominating forms online. That would reduce the work of door-knocking and street-corner haranguing that candidates must carry out to get on the ballot.

Ryan Brown covers statewide politics for Ogden Newspapers. He can be reached at rbrown@altoonamirror.com.