Local lawmakers are reflecting on what they accomplished in 2025, and what they consider unfinished business for 2026.<\/p>\n
State senator Dan Laughlin is in his third term representing Erie county. In 2025, he saw a long time priority reach legislative success.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to get Sunday hunting passed, which was a big deal,\u201d Laughlin said. \u201cIt\u2019s something that I\u2019ve worked on personally the whole nine years that I\u2019ve been here. It\u2019s made a big impact in a lot of sportsmen\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laughlin has also enjoyed watching the groundwork get laid for Erie\u2019s CRIZ- a tax investment zone that was approved in the 2024 budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s already tens of millions of dollars being invested into the city already because of it,\u201d Laughlin said. \u201cJust even next year in 2026, you\u2019re going to see you\u2019re going to see cranes in downtown Erie building stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking ahead to 2026\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the big pieces of legislation, at least in my opinion, is going to be this cannabis control board,\u201d Laughlin said, who is sponsor of the bill for the board.<\/p>\n
The control board would govern Pennsylvania\u2019s medical marijuana program, but also create rules for hemp products and future adult-use programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re kind of in the wild west right now of cannabis in Pennsylvania,\u201d Laughlin said. \u201cCreating this board will bring some common sense regulatory efforts to kind of maintain safety for our state residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laughlin also wants to raise minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $11 an hour- and has a bill ready for movement in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, a lot of the minimum wage advocates would say, well, that\u2019s nowhere near enough, but it\u2019s a step in the right direction,\u201d Laughlin said. \u201cAnd quite frankly, I think if we\u2019re honest with ourselves, there\u2019s darn few businesses that aren\u2019t paying that now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lastly, on a local level, Laughlin has a bill to update taxes and fees on airports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the folks back back home realize that the Erie airport is really struggling to get and maintain flights and have enough passengers,\u201d Laughlin said. \u201c[the legislation] will actually help offset some of the costs to run the airport and attract more more carriers so we can have more flights, more direct flights in and out of Erie.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local lawmakers are reflecting on what they accomplished in 2025, and what they consider unfinished business for 2026.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2288,136,138,137,37,5929],"class_list":{"0":"post-76250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-bureau","9":"tag-erie","10":"tag-erie-headlines","11":"tag-erie-news","12":"tag-harrisburg","13":"tag-pennsylvania-capitol"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}