September 2024 saw the PA Legislature return to Harrisburg after their summer recess. The Senate was in voting session Sept 16, 17, 18 and 30 as they prepared for the end of the two-year legislative session on November 30, 2024.

The House returned to voting session two weeks later, on Sept 30, and newly elected Reps Keith Harris and Andre Carroll, both Democrats from Philadelphia, were promptly sworn into office. Their elections were the ninth and 10th special elections in the House during the current legislative session. In each, the party in control of the seat has not changed, allowing House Democrats to maintain their narrow 102-101 majority. More on their special elections can be found here.

The month of October is expected to have eight voting session days before the Nov 5^th election. These session days will be full of bill trading, like the June budget push, however, these issues will be policy-focused and not deal with appropriations-related matters. We do not anticipate any bills impacting the film production tax credit program to be considered during this time.

Each chamber does have two session days scheduled for the week after the elections, however, there has not been any substantive votes taken in sine die session in over a decade. We expect that the only business that will take place during sine die will be farewell/retirement speeches and caucus elections for the 2025-26 legislative term.

Once voting session concludes in mid-October, all eyes will be focused on the November 5^th elections. For PA-specific races, all 203 seats in the PA House  and 25 of the 50 Senate seats will be on the ballot. Spotlight PA reports that less than two dozen House races  are considered competitive according to an article posted here. With Senate Republicans holding a 28 to 22 majority, the Democrats will need to flip 3 seats for a tie, and 4 seats for the majority. The Democrats have not controlled the state Senate in more than 30 years.

The three statewide “row offices” will also be on the ballot in November:

Please note that October 21 is the last day to register to vote for the Tuesday, November 5, 2024, General Election. Visit vote.pa.gov to register, request a mail ballot, or find important information about Pennsylvania elections.