HARRISBURG, April 13 -- State Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Phila, is advocating for formal acknowledgement of the extraordinary work of caregivers of Pennsylvania’s veterans through the Hidden Heroes campaign. “Many times, a veteran’s caregiver is a spouse, parent and other loved ones whose lives are transformed, their goals set aside, and they rearrange their lives to help the ones who sacrificed the most for us,” Rabb said. “We need to recognize that these women and men are heroes and sacrifice more than we currently understand.” The Hidden Heroes campaign is an initiative through the Elizabeth Dole Foundation that seeks to raise awareness of the struggles of these special caregivers. It also seeks to establish a national registry where veterans and their caregivers can access resources available to them. Read more
“It’s not science fiction. We have all the technology we need right now to get there,” Rabb said, adding that Pennsylvania has a constitutional duty from its Environmental Rights Amendment to provide clean air and water to all Pennsylvanians, including generations yet to come. Read more
“So much of what we have to do is not come up with new stuff, but to invest in the things that already exists and we also have to increase our literacy about how and why we need to move to one hundred percent renewable future because its not science fiction. We have all of the technology we need right now to get there, all of it," said Representative Chris Rabb Read more
"Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come," Rabb wrote in a co-sponsorship memorandum. Read more
At a House Democratic Policy Committee meeting on raising the minimum wage, Pa. state Rep. Chris Rabb highlights how women and people of color have been on the front lines fighting for a fair wage and he is excited that the new Democratic House majority is taking action and advancing legislation to raise the wage. Read more
Every March as part of Women’s History Month, Pa. state Rep. Chris Rabb holds an awards ceremony where he honors women from his district who have done great things in their communities. Read more
Pa. state Rep. Chris Rabb thanks child sex abuse survivor Michael McDonnell for his work helping others. Rabb says that folks like McDonnell who tell their stories of survival are critical to helping others who were victimized to acknowledge their trauma and put the blame where it belongs, on the abusers. Read more
Pa state Rep. Chris Rabb calls this hearing of the House Judiciary Committee historic. He says after 12 years of Republicans silencing legislation that addressed issues like gun violence and victims of sexual abuse, Democratic legislation will finally get a vote. Read more
"I feel fine to do anything because I'm not impaired," said Rabb, who takes cannabis tinctures at night to help with sleep. Read more
“I’m honored to be a part of this moment and to be a part of this movement, but I also think it is important to place a spotlight on the fact why we are here today,” hearing co-host Rep. Chris Rabb said. “In spite of the work of many of the people sitting in this room today, until recently all standing committees that dealt with this issue were run by Republicans who refused to run any bill that dealt directly with raising minimum wage. I am glad to say, we have seen great change in Harrisburg in recent months.” Read more
Starting his third term on the House Judiciary Committee, Pa. state Rep. Chris Rabb expresses his feeling of optimism that this legislative session will bring the gun law reforms needed to keep people across the Commonwealth safe. Read more
HARRISBURG, March 20 – State Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Phila., announced today that he is drafting legislation that would amend the Criminal History Record Information Act to ensure disclosure of public health and community safety risks. Public health reports from 2016 and 2023 revealed that there is an extensive list of contaminants in the Dimock water supply in Pennsylvania. However, CHRIA prohibits the Office of Attorney General from disclosing the results of its independent report analyzing the Dimock water supply. This legislation would provide exceptions for CHRIA that allow the public to be notified of public health and community safety risks and would require the Office of Environmental Justice to investigate information pertaining to potential or prospective harm to public health. “The public has a right to information regarding potential health hazards,” Rabb said. “We cannot allow polluters to pollute our environment anywhere across our commonwealth under the veil of benign government bureaucracy.” Read more
“It is imperative that we take the initiative to infuse fairness into our election process, so that candidates are running on a level playing field,” Rabb said Read more
HARRISBURG, Mach 16 – Following the recent Philadelphia ballot lottery result, where little-known candidates lucked into top billing for the May 16 mayoral election, State Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Phila., is planning to reintroduce his rotating ballot positions legislation , which would establish a randomized candidate ballot position rotation system to ensure no candidate has an unfair advantage based on the luck of the ballot position draw. The legislation would require the randomization of each precinct’s list of candidates, so that no individual precinct will reflect the same order on the ballot, ensuring that no candidate has the unfair advantage of topping every ballot. “It is imperative that we take the initiative to infuse fairness into our election process, so that candidates are running on a level playing field,” Rabb said. “While drawing ballot positions from a Horn & Hardart coffee can is a quaint tradition, it’s an arcane, unnecessary and inequitable way to determine something as important as ballot position.” Rabb previously introduced the bill as part of his package of innovative election-related legislation in the leadup to the November 2022 election. Read more
“The documented abuses of this publicly funded program are a disgrace condemned by law enforcement leadership and police officers who follow the rules and are in genuine need of assistance,” Rabb said. “If my conservative colleagues claim the banners of ridding government of waste, fraud and abuse, fiscal responsibility and law enforcement, my bill should be eagerly embraced.” Read more
HARRISBURG, Feb. 17 – Following Gov. Josh Shapiro’s Thursday announcement that he will not issue any execution warrants during his term, state Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Phila., today announced that he will reintroduce legislation to repeal Pennsylvania’s death penalty, a bill that he has proposed three times since taking office in 2017. “One innocent life taken at the hands of the state is one too many . The fact that the state has put even one innocent person to death is simply egregious,” Rabb said. “Furthermore, the appeals process when a person is sentenced to death is long and costly, lasting decades and often resulting in their death via old age rather than lethal injection. “The risks are grave and the injustices irreparable. Our justice system is simply too fallible and the benefits too small to continue this practice.” Should Pennsylvania enact Rabb’s legislation, it would join 23 other states that have decided to abolish the death penalty. According to Gallup polling, public support for the death penalty is the lowest it’s been in decades. In Pennsylvania, the number of new death penalty sentences has steadily declined since the 1990s. Read more
PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 10 – State Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Phila., released a statement on Judge Scott DiClaudio’s ruling that India Spellman’s 2010 murder trial was unconstitutional and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s decision to not retry Spellman, freeing her to go home. “Ms. Spellman had years of her life stolen by a justice system that let corruption fester. It took a former homicide detective being tried for perjury in a similar case, along with the persistent efforts of the Spellman family — constituents of mine — for India to gain her long overdue freedom. It disturbs me to think of how many people could be stuck in a similar position due to our deeply flawed criminal legal system and law enforcement practices,” Rabb said. “It is a reminder how these injustices breed public distrust of institutions that were not designed to protect or serve members of our society’s most vulnerable communities. “We must take action to see that the innocent are not wrongfully convicted, and if they are, that they are exonerated and properly compensated for the theft of their freedom by the state.” Rabb has introduced groundbreaking legislation on exoneree compensation as improved by the collective input of many leaders in the exoneree community. Rabb said he will be reintroducing his bill in this legislative session and will seek have it be Read more
HARRISBURG, Feb. 9 – State Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Phila., issued a statement in response to the Feb. 7 decision by Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on William Penn School District v. Pennsylvania Department of Education , which ruled Pennsylvania’s public school funding system is unconstitutional. “It’s about time! I have been a long-time champion for full and fair funding for public schools,” Rabb said. “However, Tuesday’s decision is only the first step in the long journey toward generously and equitably investing in our students and in our schools.” During his first two terms in office, Rabb introduced popular, bipartisan legislation to direct 100% of state education funds through the fair funding formula . He also convened a House Democratic Policy Committee hearing on the subject in 2019 at Emlen Elementary School in his district to raise awareness around what he has characterized as “educational apartheid.” Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubilerer ruled that Pennsylvania public schools don’t have the resources to adequately educate all students, and the gaps between wealthy and poor school districts has rendered the system unconstitutional. The petitioners argued that the state’s system for funding public education, which relies mainly on local property taxes, causes inequities in funding, with school Read more
HARRISBURG, Feb. 3 – State Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Phila., announced today that he is drafting legislation that would establish the first Monday of February as Emancipation Day in Pennsylvania. Rabb said the bill would acknowledge the ongoing struggle for Black liberation in a society that still poses threats and allows barriers to persist against the advancement of Black people and allied communities of struggle. On Feb. 3, 1865, Pennsylvania became the sixth state to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, thus ensuring the abolition of slavery throughout the United States. “In theory, the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteens Amendments — otherwise known as the Reconstruction Amendments — should have led to the expansion of civil rights for Black Americans, but in practice we know that not to be the case. Black Americans have had to fight every step of the way and are still fighting to this day for true emancipation,” Rabb said. “As the axiom goes: ‘nobody’s free until everybody’s free.’” Signing this piece of legislation into law and recognizing Emancipation Day would further show the Commonwealth’s commitment to racial justice, Rabb said. Read more
HARRISBURG, Jan. 31 – A week before consequential special election races in Allegheny County that may sway the balance of power in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, state Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Phila., urged support for his soon-to-be reintroduced legislation to modernize the special election process — an all too opaque, exclusionary and expensive endeavor in which too few voters participate. “It’s time to rethink the system that got us here. We must invest in a process that is more transparent, accountable, inclusive, efficient and less costly to taxpayers,” Rabb said. The bill’s key provisions include: Making special elections for state and municipal offices nonpartisan and more accessible to both candidates and voters. Requiring that special elections happen sooner when a seat becomes vacant more than 90 days before the next election. Requiring automatic mail-in voting for all elections while providing county boards of election with the option to establish satellite voting sites. Subsidizing special elections from restitution paid by elected officials who have vacated their seats because of a felony conviction. Allowing candidates to electronically obtain nomination petition signatures. Rabb said he believes as more people choose to register as independent instead of with the two major parties in a state that prohibits independent voters from participating in primary elections, his legislation would help Read more
Pa. state Rep. Chris Rabb attended House Speaker Mark Rozzi's listening tour stop in Philadelphia to hear directly from Pennsylvanians about their concerns on how the legislature operates. Rabb, the founding chair of the House Democratic Caucus Equity Committee, says these listening sessions are meaningful to him and inform his advocacy as good government public servant in Harrisburg. Rabb hopes this will help usher in a new era of transparency and accountability in how the House functions as one of the oldest legislative bodies in the world. Read more
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