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HB 439 — An Act amending the act of October 27, 1955 (P.L.744, No.222), known as the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, further providing for definitions.

Congress · introduced 2025-01-30

Latest action: — Act No. 54 of 2025, Nov. 25, 2025

Sponsors

Action timeline

  1. · house — Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT, Jan. 30, 2025
  2. · house — Reported as committed, Feb. 4, 2025
  3. · house — First consideration, Feb. 4, 2025
  4. · house — Laid on the table, Feb. 4, 2025
  5. · house — Removed from table, Feb. 4, 2025
  6. · house — Second consideration, with amendments, Feb. 5, 2025
  7. · house — Re-committed to APPROPRIATIONS, Feb. 5, 2025
  8. · house — Re-reported as committed, March 17, 2025
  9. · house — Amended on third consideration, March 17, 2025
  10. · house — Third consideration and final passage, March 17, 2025 (194-8)
  11. · senate — In the Senate
  12. · senate — Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT, March 17, 2025
  13. · house — (Remarks see House Journal Page 143-144), Feb. 5, 2025
  14. · house — (Remarks see House Journal Page 199-201), March 17, 2025
  15. · senate — Reported as committed, Nov. 17, 2025
  16. · senate — First consideration, Nov. 17, 2025
  17. · senate — Second consideration, Nov. 18, 2025
  18. · senate — Re-referred to APPROPRIATIONS, Nov. 18, 2025
  19. · senate — Re-reported as committed, Nov. 18, 2025
  20. · senate — Third consideration and final passage, Nov. 19, 2025 (44-3)
  21. · senate — (Remarks see Senate Journal Page ), Nov. 19, 2025
  22. · house — Signed in House, Nov. 19, 2025
  23. · senate — Signed in Senate, Nov. 19, 2025
  24. — Presented to the Governor, Nov. 19, 2025
  25. — Approved by the Governor, Nov. 25, 2025
  26. — Act No. 54 of 2025, Nov. 25, 2025

Text versions

No text versions on file yet — same ingest as the action timeline populates these. Each version has direct links to the XML / HTML / PDF at govinfo.gov.

Bill text

Printer's No. 0397 · 3,737 characters · source document

Read the full text
PRINTER'S NO.   397

                     THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA



                         HOUSE BILL
                         No. 439
                                               Session of
                                                 2025

     INTRODUCED BY MAYES, McCLINTON, SMITH-WADE-EL, D. MILLER,
        MADDEN, VENKAT, GUZMAN, HILL-EVANS, MARKOSEK, KENYATTA,
        McNEILL, POWELL, SCHLOSSBERG, RABB, KAZEEM, WAXMAN, BRENNAN,
        HADDOCK, PIELLI, STEELE, KHAN, BERNSTINE, HANBIDGE, GIRAL,
        SANCHEZ, BOYD, HOHENSTEIN, BENHAM, CURRY, OTTEN, ABNEY,
        CEPHAS, N. NELSON, CARROLL, BELLMON, SAMUELSON, T. DAVIS,
        D. WILLIAMS, MALAGARI, PARKER, BRIGGS, A. BROWN, BURGOS,
        SCOTT, CEPEDA-FREYTIZ, KRAJEWSKI, SHUSTERMAN, CERRATO,
        BOROWSKI, FIEDLER, McANDREW, PROBST AND DAVIDSON,
        JANUARY 30, 2025

     REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON STATE GOVERNMENT, JANUARY 30, 2025


                                    AN ACT
 1   Amending the act of October 27, 1955 (P.L.744, No.222), entitled
 2      "An act prohibiting certain practices of discrimination
 3      because of race, color, religious creed, ancestry, age or
 4      national origin by employers, employment agencies, labor
 5      organizations and others as herein defined; creating the
 6      Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in the Governor's
 7      Office; defining its functions, powers and duties; providing
 8      for procedure and enforcement; providing for formulation of
 9      an educational program to prevent prejudice; providing for
10      judicial review and enforcement and imposing penalties,"
11      further providing for definitions.
12      The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
13   hereby enacts as follows:
14      Section 1.    Section 4 of the act of October 27, 1955
15   (P.L.744, No.222), known as the Pennsylvania Human Relations
16   Act, is amended by adding clauses to read:
17      Section 4.    Definitions.--As used in this act unless a
18   different meaning clearly appears from the context:
 1      * * *
 2      (bb)     (1)   The term "race" includes traits historically
 3   associated with the individual's race, including hair texture
 4   and protective hairstyles. Nothing in this clause shall be
 5   construed to prohibit an employer from adopting and enforcing an
 6   otherwise valid workplace health and safety rule or policy or
 7   other rule or policy justified as a bona fide occupational
 8   qualification, provided the employer demonstrates all of the
 9   following, if the rule or policy impacts traits historically
10   associated with the individual's race:
11      (i)     Without the adoption of the rule or policy the health or
12   safety of an employe or other materially connected person may be
13   impaired.
14      (ii)     The rule or policy is adopted for nondiscriminatory
15   reasons.
16      (iii)     The rule or policy is specifically tailored to the
17   applicable position and activity.
18      (iv)     The rule or policy is applied equally to individuals
19   whose positions fall under the applicable position and activity.
20      (2)     Nothing in this clause shall be construed to prohibit an
21   employer from adopting and enforcing an otherwise valid
22   workplace policy to prevent a hostile work environment, provided
23   the policy is adopted for nondiscriminatory reasons and is
24   applied equally.
25      (cc)     The term "protective hairstyle" includes, but is not
26   limited to, such hairstyles as locs, braids, twists, coils,
27   Bantu knots, afros and extensions.
28      Section 2.      This act shall take effect in 60 days.




20250HB0439PN0397                     - 2 -

Connected on the graph

Outbound (4)

datetypetoamountrolesource
—referred_to_committeePennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee—pa-leg
—referred_to_committeePennsylvania Senate State Government Committee—pa-leg
—referred_to_committeePennsylvania House Appropriations Committee—pa-leg
—referred_to_committeePennsylvania House State Government Committee—pa-leg

The full graph

Every typed relationship touching this entity — 4 edges across 1 category. Grouped by what the connection is; the heaviest few are shown, with a link to the full list.

Committees

→ Referred to committee 4 edges

Who matters

Members ranked by combined influence on this bill: role (sponsor 5 / cosponsor 1), capped speech count from the Congressional Record, and recorded-vote engagement.

#MemberRoleSpeechesVotedScore
1La'Tasha D. Mayes (D, state_lower PA-24)sponsor0—5
2Aaron Bernstine (R, state_lower PA-8)cosponsor0—1
3Abigail Salisbury (D, state_lower PA-34)cosponsor0—1
4Aerion Abney (D, state_lower PA-19)cosponsor0—1
5Amen Brown (D, state_lower PA-10)cosponsor0—1
6Andre D. Carroll (D, state_lower PA-201)cosponsor0—1
7Anthony A. Bellmon (D, state_lower PA-203)cosponsor0—1
8Arvind Venkat (D, state_lower PA-30)cosponsor0—1
9Ben Waxman (D, state_lower PA-182)cosponsor0—1
10Benjamin V. Sanchez (D, state_lower PA-153)cosponsor0—1
11Brandon J. Markosek (D, state_lower PA-25)cosponsor0—1
12Bridget M. Kosierowski (D, state_lower PA-114)cosponsor0—1
13Carol Hill-Evans (D, state_lower PA-95)cosponsor0—1
14Carol Kazeem (D, state_lower PA-159)cosponsor0—1
15Chris Pielli (D, state_lower PA-156)cosponsor0—1
16Christopher M. Rabb (D, state_lower PA-200)cosponsor0—1
17Dan K. Williams (D, state_lower PA-74)cosponsor0—1
18Daniel J. Deasy (D, state_lower PA-27)cosponsor0—1
19Danielle Friel Otten (D, state_lower PA-155)cosponsor0—1
20Danilo Burgos (D, state_lower PA-197)cosponsor0—1
21Darisha K. Parker (D, state_lower PA-198)cosponsor0—1
22Dave Madsen (D, state_lower PA-104)cosponsor0—1
23Elizabeth Fiedler (D, state_lower PA-184)cosponsor0—1
24G. Roni Green (D, state_lower PA-190)cosponsor0—1
25Gina H. Curry (D, state_lower PA-164)cosponsor0—1

Predicted vote

Aggregated from: actual roll-call votes (when present) → sponsor → cosponsor → party median (predicts YES when ≥25% of the caucus sponsored/cosponsored). Each row labels its confidence tier so you can see why a position was predicted.

0 predicted yes (0%) · 543 predicted no (100%) · 0 unknown (0%)

By party: · R: 0 yes / 277 no · D: 0 yes / 263 no · I: 0 yes / 3 no

Activity

Every typed-graph event involving this entity, newest first. Each row is one edge in the influence graph; click the date to jump to its provenance.

  1. 2026-05-20 · was referred to Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee · pa-leg
  2. 2026-05-20 · was referred to Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee · pa-leg
  3. 2026-05-20 · was referred to Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee · pa-leg
  4. 2026-05-20 · was referred to Pennsylvania House State Government Committee · pa-leg

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