Taylor Swift Proposal Tears Pennsylvania Legislature Apart
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In case you forgot, government officials love to get cringey over Taylor Swift. Remember when the FBI encouraged narcing through her lyrics? We now have a new low: Pennsylvania House Legislators arguing over whether to recognize 2023 as the “Taylor Swift Era.”
House Resolution 282 passed with 103 yes votes and 100 nays. It was introduced by Rep. Danielle Friel Otten — who excitedly tweeted after it passed — as well as Robert Freeman, Jennifer O’Mara, Arvind Venkat, Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz, Benjamin V. Sanchez, Jose Giral, and Maureen E. Madden.
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But the 11-hour video of the house session (which took place on Dec. 13, Swift’s 34th birthday) is too great to gloss over. Watch it below at the 6:43:00 mark.
Rep. Wendy Fink was the first to oppose, standing up to crank out some intense math. “There are 265 resolutions circulating in the House,” she said. “Of those, the House has passed 84 of them. 84 memos times 24 committee members times five minutes of discussion is 10,080 minutes, or 168 hours. Once its passed out of committee, resolutions go to the floor for a vote. So we have 84 resolutions times 203 members times five minutes for discussion equals 85,260 minutes, or 1,421 hours. That’s a total of 1,589 hours of wasted time.”
Speaker of the House Joanna McClinton — the first woman and woman of color to serve as Speaker — responded while casually chewing gum: “The haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate.”
Things got out of hand from here, with Rep. Stephanie Borowicz saying, “What a joke of the State House Assembly of Pennsylvania. This is the Democratic party though, idolizing Hollywood… Giving Taylor Swift an era while our veterans get a day.”
Rep. Paul Schemel then made so many cringey references — “I will be swift in my remarks!” — before McClinton told him, “This is not open mic night.” Rep. Russ Diamond took it a step further, claiming that Swift broke up with her home state when she moved to Tennessee, singing “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” Rep. Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz cheerily capped it off with, “I really love that we can have fun while we work!”
The proposal is just one of the many victories for Swift this month. Her Eras tour just became the highest-grossing tour of all time and first to hit at least $1 billion, while her Spotify earnings brought her $100 million in 2023 alone. She was recently hailed as Time‘s Person of the Year, which the far-right didn’t exactly love. Oh, and her football star boyfriend, Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, made Google’s 2023 Year in Trending Searches List. ‘Tis the damn season!
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