Pennsylvania House Considers Forming Secretive Committee With Power to Expel Members by Beth Brelje – US Politics News

Despite heated opposition from Republicans this week, majority Democrats on Pennsylvania’s House Committee on Rules, have passed a resolution to create a subcommittee that would run secret incapacity inquiries on other House members.
The proposed subcommittee, introduced on May 8, by House Majority leader Rep. Matthew Bradford, a Democrat, would have the power to suspend publicly elected members with or without pay. The measure passed along party lines, with 18 Democrats in support of the rule change and 14 Republicans opposed.
“It is one of the most dangerous resolutions that I’ve ever seen introduced in this body,” Minority Chair Bryan Cutler, a Republican, said during the Rules Committee meeting. “I do not speak lightly or with hyperbole when I say that this creates an involuntary commitment committee. The committee formed in this resolution is a stacked, secret, one-sided panel, able to compel members to potentially testify against themselves outside of the public eye.”…