Democrats won control of the Pennsylvania Senate in Tuesday’s election, Nov. 3, according to Associated Press race calls, so the chamber that has bottled up the Pennsylvania Fairness Act will have a Democratic majority in January. “TRIFECTA DELIVERED,” Gov. Josh Shapiro posted on X early Wednesday, before the AP had finished calling races, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Shapiro has promised to sign the Fairness Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity or expression to the state’s civil rights law for jobs, housing and public accommodations, House Democrats said. “It is long past time to pass a nondiscrimination law in our Commonwealth,” Shapiro said in an April 2023 statement.
How Democrats Flipped the Pennsylvania Senate 26 to 24
Republicans went into Tuesday holding the Senate 27 to 23, and Democrats came out ahead 26 to 24 while keeping the state House, CBS Philadelphia reported, citing AP projections. “For the first time in decades, Pennsylvanians used their power tonight to flip the state Senate so that we can deliver even more results for our communities,” Shapiro said in a statement.
All four Republican seats on the Democrats’ target list fell, with wins for Bucks County social worker Eileen Hartnett Albillar and Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley among them, though Republican state Rep. Tom Jones took back Lancaster County’s 36th District, the Inquirer reported. “Finally, the progress working families have been crying out for can be delivered in Harrisburg,” said Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia, who chairs the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.
His committee noted that the party’s 1993 trifecta came after a senator changed parties, and that voters hadn’t elected a Democratic Senate in more than 50 years, according to the Inquirer. “This is a good night for our commonwealth,” Shapiro said Tuesday night, Spotlight PA reported.
(Tuesday’s other AP calls, from Chris Pappas’ Senate win in New Hampshire to Virginia’s vote to kick its 2006 marriage ban out of the state constitution, are on Gayety’s LGBTQ+ election results page.)
Pennsylvania Fairness Act Cleared the House 101 to 100
“This has always been simple: Pennsylvania is better when it’s fairer,” Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia, said after the House vote on April 28. He’d attached the Fairness Act to HB 2103, a bill from Rep. Ben Waxman, D-Philadelphia, to block whites-only housing communities, and it passed 101-100 without a single Republican vote, though two Republicans had backed the 2023 version, FOX43 reported.
The 2023 version, HB 300, passed 102-98, abc27 reported, then stalled in the GOP-led Senate. “I wouldn’t even say it’s a slippery slope. I think we’re already at the bottom of the slope with this bill,” said Rep. Marc Anderson, R-York, who argued in April that this year’s version would let people use whichever bathrooms and join whichever sports teams they want, FOX43 reported.
HB 2103 remains in the Senate State Government Committee, where it was referred May 7, legislative records show. “Gov. Shapiro has made it clear he will sign this bill into law,” Kenyatta said in April.
Federal law already prohibits covered employers from firing someone because they are gay or transgender. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says those protections generally cover private employers with at least 15 employees. The Fairness Act would put explicit LGBTQ+ protections into Pennsylvania’s civil rights statute, alongside the state’s existing regulatory protections.
Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission Rules Face a Court Challenge
Pennsylvania already covers some of this ground by regulation: since Aug. 16, 2023, Human Relations Commission rules have read “sex” to include sexual orientation and gender identity or expression in employment, housing, education and public accommodations, the commission said when it published them.
“Too often we have heard of cases where people are discriminated against because of who they love, what religion they practice, what they look like, or how they wear their hair,” commission Executive Director Chad Dion Lassiter said then.
Shapiro kept those rules, which began under Gov. Tom Wolf, but the Thomas More Society has sued in Commonwealth Court on behalf of parents and school districts to block them, Spotlight PA reported in September. “For too long certain Pennsylvanians, particularly those in the LGBTQ community have had to look over their shoulders,” Kenyatta said in April.
Albillar, Pinsley and the Senate’s other new members take office Jan. 5, 2027, according to Spotlight PA.
The election does not enact the Fairness Act. Lawmakers would still need to approve legislation in both chambers before Shapiro could sign it.
