PENNSYLVANIA: State Rep Says Hate Crimes Bill Could Get Vote Tomorrow

Last week Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims said that a pending LGBT-inclusive hate crimes bill was likely dead for the current session. Today state Rep. Brendan Boyle disagrees. Via Victor Fiorillo at Philadelphia Magazine:

“Since it’s been introduced and co-sponsored and referred to committee, it could get final passage as early as Tuesday,” says Boyle, who has called a Harrisburg press conference on the subject for 11 a.m. Tuesday morning with State Representative Larry Farnese. When we spoke with Representative Brian Sims last week, he told us that he intends to take the Philadelphia victims with him to Harrisburg next year, because, the way Sims tells it, there's virtually no chance of anything happening with this bill during the current legislative session, and the next one starts in January. But Boyle isn't so sure. "It has been a year-and-a-half since I introduced it, and the Republican leadership has shown no willingness to move any piece of legislation that touches sexual orientation," Boyle says. "But in the wake of this event, there's a better chance of it happening now than months from now, when this issue will have receded from the news."

RELATED: Boyle is the Democratic nominee for the open US House seat in Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district. In November he faces swimming pool supplies mogul Dee Adcock, whose campaign site makes no mention of LGBT-related issues.