A House committee approved two similar bills Monday to abolish Pennsylvania’s death penalty law by party-line votes.

The Judiciary Committee voted 14-12 for House Bill 99 sponsored by Rep. Christopher Rabb, D-Philadelphia, and voted 14-12 for House Bill 888 sponsored by Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon.

Committee Democrats supported the bills while Republicans opposed them.

Committee Majority Chair Tim Briggs, D-Montgomery, said he anticipates there will be bipartisan support for whichever bill gets a House floor vote.

Briggs said the committee action positions two death penalty bills for that vote. He said an issue of this magnitude needs to advance with bipartisan support.

The committee action signals another chapter with Pennsylvania’s long and involved history using capital punishment for certain convicted criminals.

Rabb said innocent people have been executed under the death penalty. Abolishing the death penalty will put a stop to that, he added.

Pointing to the exoneration of 13 death row inmates in Pennsylvania, Diamond said the death penalty can’t be reversed.

Rep. Tim Bonner, R-Mercer, spoke against HB99. He said the death penalty should be reserved or on the table for the most heinous crimes.

He gave crimes involving mass murder or murder on public transportation as examples.

Diamond said he opposes the death penalty from a conservative viewpoint. He said he believes in the sanctity of life and views a permanent sentence of life imprisonment without parole as a strict punishment.

HB99 and HB888 fit a pattern where lawmakers across the ideological spectrum have introduced bills to abolish the death penalty.

Pennsylvania executed three inmates with lethal injection in the late 1990s.

Gov. Josh Shapiro and former Gov. Tom Wolf issued moratoriums on applying the death penalty. Shapiro called for abolishing the death penalty when he took office in 2023.