Nearly a year has passed, but state Rep. Marci Mustello's, R-11th, anti-human trafficking bill remains stalled in the state Senate's Judiciary Committee.

Mustello's bill, which would add certain crimes — such as incest as well as endangering the welfare of a child and corruption of minors, if those activities involved “sexual contact” with the minor — to the state's definition of unlawful contact with a minor, passed with bipartisan support in the state House of Representatives in May.

Despite the 184-17 vote, however, the judiciary committee in the Senate hasn't considered the bill since its introduction there May 28.

“I understand, last year, why it was put on hold, obviously because of the pandemic and everything,” Mustello said. “But you would think this is kind of important to pass out of the Senate and get it to the governor's desk.”

The Butler state representative's bill was one of several sent to the committee in 2021 aimed at targeting human trafficking. House Bill 488, which would create an affirmative duty to report to police the children who are missing, as well as House Bill 753, which would increase the grading for “trafficking of infants” from a first-degree misdemeanor to a felony of the first degree, both sit in the Senate committee, for instance, despite passage in the lower chamber.

Mustello said the bill's main purpose was not to create punishments for actions not already deemed illegal, but rather to strengthen prosecutors' ability to further pursue charges and convictions against those who perform an already illegal action to further human trafficking.

“It would strengthen the law further to further prosecute human traffickers if they engage in any of those acts with minors,” Mustello said.

“That's really what it was about, just strengthening the laws covering human trafficking.

“You're hearing about it more often, and hearing about it more often in our area. It's not just something you hear about in California and New York; it's happening in our backyard, down in Cranberry, and we've got (Interstate) 80 up north.”

She's hopeful the committee will take action on her bill and others.

"I'm hoping for some resolution in the Pennsylvania Senate to get this out of committee and to the Senate for a final vote, so we can work the bill out, if there's any issues to it that the Senate sees, so we can get it passed and onto the governor's desk,“ she said. ”There's a whole package of human trafficking bills over there, not just mine.“

Legislative backlog

The Senate Judiciary Committee is one of the largest committees in the state's upper legislative chamber. In the 2021-22 term alone, 164 “general bills” — that is, legislation not dealing with the appropriation of funds or symbolic resolutions such as naming bridges — have been referred to it, second only to the Appropriations Committee's 239 referred general bills.

Despite the large flow of proposed legislation, the committee hasn't taken many steps to pass those bills. It has reported out — meaning sent to the full Senate with a pass or do-not-pass recommendation, or no recommendation at all, with or without suggested amendments — just 33 bills.

Of all committees in the state Senate to which more than 50 bills have been referred this session, the Judiciary Committee has the lowest proportion of bills reported out: Just one-fifth, or 20%, of bills referred to it have been sent to the full body. The Appropriations Committee, the only one to receive more bills than judiciary, has reported out more than two-thirds — 68.2% — of the bills.