HB 638 — An Act amending Title 12 (Commerce and Trade) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, in commercial protection, prohibiting confession of judgment provisions.
Congress · introduced 2025-02-20
Latest action: — Referred to COMMERCE, Feb. 20, 2025
Sponsors
- Kristine C. Howard (D, PA-167) — sponsor · 2025-02-20
- Ben Waxman (D, PA-182) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- Ed Neilson (D, PA-174) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- Tarik Khan (D, PA-194) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- Jose Giral (D, PA-180) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- Carol Hill-Evans (D, PA-95) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- Chris Pielli (D, PA-156) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- Maureen E. Madden (D, PA-115) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- Benjamin V. Sanchez (D, PA-153) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- Justin C. Fleming (D, PA-105) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- G. Roni Green (D, PA-190) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- Perry S. Warren (D, PA-31) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
- Joe Ciresi (D, PA-146) — cosponsor · 2025-02-20
Action timeline
- · house — Referred to COMMERCE, Feb. 20, 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. 0648 · 1,822 characters · source document
Read the full text
PRINTER'S NO. 648
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
HOUSE BILL
No. 638
Session of
2025
INTRODUCED BY HOWARD, WAXMAN, NEILSON, KHAN, GIRAL, HILL-EVANS,
PIELLI, MADDEN AND SANCHEZ, FEBRUARY 20, 2025
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, FEBRUARY 20, 2025
AN ACT
1 Amending Title 12 (Commerce and Trade) of the Pennsylvania
2 Consolidated Statutes, in commercial protection, prohibiting
3 confession of judgment provisions.
4 The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
5 hereby enacts as follows:
6 Section 1. Part IV of Title 12 of the Pennsylvania
7 Consolidated Statutes is amended by adding a chapter to read:
8 CHAPTER 59
9 MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
10 Sec.
11 5901. Confession of judgment provisions prohibited.
12 § 5901. Confession of judgment provisions prohibited.
13 (a) Prohibition.--A contract or agreement entered into
14 between parties may not contain a provision that authorizes one
15 party to confess judgment against another party to the contract
16 or agreement.
17 (b) Exceptions.--Subsection (a) does not apply to a contract
18 or agreement entered into:
1 (1) prior to the effective date of this section; or
2 (2) by the Commonwealth or a municipality pursuant to
3 statute.
4 (c) Effect.--A confession of judgment provision in violation
5 of this section is void and unenforceable.
6 Section 2. This act shall take effect in 60 days.
20250HB0638PN0648 - 2 -Connected on the graph
Outbound (1)
| date | type | to | amount | role | source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | referred_to_committee | Pennsylvania House Commerce Committee | — | pa-leg |
The full graph
Every typed relationship touching this entity — 1 edge 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 1 edge
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.
| # | Member | Role | Speeches | Voted | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kristine C. Howard (D, state_lower PA-167) | sponsor | 0 | — | 5 |
| 2 | Ben Waxman (D, state_lower PA-182) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 3 | Benjamin V. Sanchez (D, state_lower PA-153) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 4 | Carol Hill-Evans (D, state_lower PA-95) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 5 | Chris Pielli (D, state_lower PA-156) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 6 | Ed Neilson (D, state_lower PA-174) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 7 | G. Roni Green (D, state_lower PA-190) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 8 | Joe Ciresi (D, state_lower PA-146) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 9 | Jose Giral (D, state_lower PA-180) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 10 | Justin C. Fleming (D, state_lower PA-105) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 11 | Maureen E. Madden (D, state_lower PA-115) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 12 | Perry S. Warren (D, state_lower PA-31) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 1 |
| 13 | Tarik Khan (D, state_lower PA-194) | cosponsor | 0 | — | 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.
- 2026-05-20 · was referred to Pennsylvania House Commerce Committee · pa-leg