The Patriot-News reported that The Pennsylvania House of Representatives came up 5 votes short of overriding Governor Wolf’s veto of HB 2787, the School Sports bill. This closely watched bill would have explicitly allowed local school districts to establish attendance limits at Kindergarten through Grade 12 sports and extracurricular activities.
The final vote to override was 130-71, but 135 votes were required to achieve the 2/3 majority. The failure ultimately came down to 25 Democratic House Members who switched their votes from “aye” to “nay”. However, there was still considerable Democratic support for the bill. According to the article:
Rep. Anita Kulik, D-Allegheny County, shared that a student athlete suffered a broken arm in her district last week and the child’s parents were not in the stadium.
“I practiced family law for over 20 years,” Kulik said. “We hold parents responsible for the well being of their children. I wholeheartedly believe that parents have the inherent rights to be where their children are.”
The article also says, “Even as the governor’s veto stands, the Wolf Administration’s attendance limits remain on the sidelines because of a federal court ruling last week that declared them and Wolf’s stay-at-home and business closure orders to be unconstitutional. The governor had asked schools to voluntarily continue to adhere to the administration’s limits: 25 people for indoor K-12 sporting contests and extracurricular activities and 250 for outdoor events for the 2020-21 school year.” See our articles on Judge Stickman’s ruling in Butler County v Wolf, PA Health Secretary Levine’s interpretation of the ruling, and the Mid-American Hockey District’s interpretation of the same ruling for a sense of the impact on the ice hockey community in Pennsylvania.
The General Assembly’s (which is the official name of the Pennsylvania state legislature) last successful override of a gubernatorial veto occurrent in November 2010, almost 10 years ago.