Sunday hunting ban nearly lifted in Pa.; legislators send bill to Gov. Shapiro

• By Jaxon White/LNP | LancasterOnline

Legislators on Monday sent a bill lifting the near-total ban on Sunday hunting in Pennsylvania to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk, after decades of debating the proposal in Harrisburg.

The House approved the bill in a 142-61 vote Monday afternoon. The Senate cleared the legislation last week, after removing several agriculture-focused provisions.

“My gosh- this is actually happening,” Rep. Mandy Steele, the bill’s sponsor and a Democrat from Allegheny County, posted to Facebook on Monday. “50 years of people fighting for this! One step closer to a long-awaited victory!”

Supporters have said Sunday hunting could help attract more tourists to Pennsylvania and that the ban prevented busy families from hunting together.

Shapiro’s signature is all that remains for the Sunday hunting expansion bill to become law, though he could veto it. When contacted Monday evening, Shapiro’s spokesperson, Manuel Bonder, did not say whether the governor would support the legislation.

Every Republican House member from Lancaster County opposed the legislation, as they did with an earlier version of the bill, while the county’s two Democrats voted in favor. The county’s three senators each supported the proposal last week.

The ban — dating to 1873 — is one of Pennsylvania’s last “blue laws” that bar certain activities on Sundays. Hunting foxes, coyotes and crows currently is permitted on any open season day, including Sundays. A 2019 law allowed the Pennsylvania Game Commission to pick three Sundays for hunting other game annually.

Steele’s bill would allow the Game Commission to open additional Sunday opportunities for hunting game, including turkeys, bears and deer.

“Today’s vote again demonstrates the broad support for this bill,” Steve Smith, executive director of the Game Commission, said in a Monday statement. “The Game Commission has worked hard on behalf of Pennsylvania’s hunters to help get this bill across the finish line, which now is in sight.”

The Senate removed an earlier provision that would have required hunters who use deer urine as an attractant to test it for chronic wasting disease, and another that would have added an agriculture representative to the Game Commission.

Those pieces of the bill were added last year, among others, to win the support of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, which had opposed lifting the near-total ban for decades.

The approved bill still includes harsher penalties for hunters trespassing on private property and requires that Sunday hunters carry written permission from the owners to hunt on their land, as sought by the Farm Bureau.

Sen. Dan Laughlin, an Erie Republican who sponsored his chamber’s version of the latest Sunday hunting expansion, applauded the bill’s passage on Monday,

“Pennsylvania hunters, young and old, will now have the chance to fully participate in a cherished outdoor tradition while also continuously building family bonds and enjoying our commonwealth’s great outdoors,” Laughlin said. “This is a change I am truly proud to have fought for.”