Recap: The Week of Action for the Gift Ban
With only a few days left in the legislation session, we ramped up our Gift Ban campaign the last week of September demanding the bill be called to a vote.
With many failed promises and verbal support yet no action on the bill, we thought of creative and urgent ways to force a confrontation with House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, who is responsible for calling bills to a vote in the House.
On September 29th, MarchOnHarrisburg activists confronted House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff and demanded that he bring HB 1945, the Gift Ban, to a vote before the end of legislative session. Our volunteers staged a dramatic presentation outside Rep. Benninghoff’s office to let legislators know: as days pass by without a vote, there is blood on the hands of Pennsylvania legislators. During the demonstration, actors portrayed the corruption-fueled indifference that prevents legislators from responding to the crisis of Pennsylvanians.
““While legislators are taking bribes, people of Pennsylvania have lost their incomes, their homes, and their lives. This is not about democracy legislation for democracy’s sake. Unfettered gift-giving from lobbyists drowns out our voices. They cannot hear our suffering.’”
'Other speakers explained that what unites the multitude of critical issues facing Pennsylvanians is the non-response from our government. ”Our State Legislature is so choked by its own corruption that it is unable to respond to the suffering of Pennsylvanians, that our legislators are so busy spending time with lobbyists and their gifts that they do not see the lived reality of Pennsylvanians.” said Lehigh Valley Chapter Leader, Beth Taylor.
Facts like “The Natural Gas industry employs 203 lobbyists to represent their interests at the capitol building, and have spent almost $70 million lobbying our representatives since 2007” shadowed realities faced by advocates like Michael Badges-Canning, “My friends in the Woodlands, Butler County have been without drinking water since 2010.... Each day that community members deal with their water supply that’s been poisoned by fracking, and communities across Pennsylvania face this reality, there is blood on our legislators' hands!”
We invited legislators earlier in the morning to bear witness to our testimony, but none were in attendance. However, we did attract the interest and support from attendees of the Second Amendment rally taking place outside the Capitol who joined in on our chanting, ‘Drain the swamp!’.
After being denied access to Rep. Benninghoff, activists brought the protest into Rep. Benninghoff’s office, demanding action and tossing piles of “blood money.” Refusing to leave until being heard by Rep. Benninghoff, the four members were forcibly removed, arrested, and issued summary citations for trespassing and a week-long "stay away” order from the Capitol.
“Our legislature and our political system is disconnected from the people it is supposed to serve. While our legislators get legally bribed by moneyed interests, Pennsylvanians suffer and die. Our political system cannot serve both money and people, and while it serves money, people get hurt. We must pass HB 1945: Gift Ban and make bribery illegal so that our public servants can serve the people and respond to the multitude of crises that we face,” said Rabbi Michael Pollack, who was arrested during the demonstration.
The next day, MarchOnHarrisburg activists took our protests a step closer to our target and headed to Rep. Benninghoff’s Harrisburg residence with fresh coffee, donuts, and an invitation to talk about a simple question inspired by the popular “Chane My Mind” meme: “Why Isn’t the Gift Ban Already Law?”
Shortly after arriving at Rep. Benninghoff’s residence, MarchOnHarrisburg was greeted by Rep. Tommy Sankey, who said Rep. Benninghoff was not home. Activists and Rep. Sankey, along with Rep. Eric Nelson talked at length about HB 1945, corruption in Harrisburg and how systemic corruption prevents progress on common sense ideas. The representatives agreed to talk with their housemate, Majority Leader Benninghoff, about the Gift Ban.
MarchOnHarrisburg’s sign challenged the representatives to "Change Our Minds," about the Gift Ban, but there were no disagreements, only common agreement that bribery is wrong and that Pennsylvania needs the ban.
The next morning, MarchOnHarrisburg activists took protesting one step even closer to Rep. Benninghoff, organizing local constituents to rally outside of his district office.
Activist worked to call out that Pennsylvania is currently one of only eight states that allows unlimited gift giving (bribery) to legislators and that HB1945, the Gift Ban, would make this bribery illegal. To call attention to the absurdity of this corruption, activists wearing “$100 bill money suits”’ entered Rep. Benninghoff’s district office and attempted to “bribe” the staff with cash. The staff politely refused and agreed that legalized gift-giving to legislators is wrong.
“Today we once again are showing that we are persistent, insistent, and tenaciously nonviolent. As long as money talks in Harrisburg, as long as money is speech and bribery is legal, the voice of the people, the voices of suffering Pennsylvanians are not heard in our halls of power,” said Rabbi Michael Pollack.
As activists held signs reading “Pass the Gift Ban” and “giftban.org,” Rev. Elizabeth Hoffman Reed opened the rally outside the office by sharing facts about the suffering of people in Pennsylvania: “40% of all renters currently face eviction and 4.6 million Pennsylvanians have lost income during the pandemic, people are suffering, people are dying,” she said as our volunteers handed out flyers to people passing by.
Rabbi Michael Pollack then spoke about the journey of the gift ban bill. “The shoes that I am wearing are falling apart. These are my lobbying shoes, and I’ve worn them out over the last four years alongside so many MarchOnHarrisburg volunteers as we have gone into thousands of meetings with our state legislators, demanding that they make bribery illegal and pass the Gift ban. We’ve marched 265 miles and we’ve gone to jail over a dozen times in the Capitol. Our systemic corruption makes our legislature indifferent to the people, and it is long past time for Majority Leader Benninghoff to call a vote on HB1945.”
We will continue to have a prescence at Rep. Benninghoff’s district office every Friday demanding he call the Gift Ban to a vote.