By David Calloway, Member, Southeastern Pennsylvania Group; Outings Co-Chair, Pennsylvania Chapter, and Michael Bagdes-Canning, March On Harrisburg
From April 30 to May 4, there will be a March On Harrisburg from Reading to the state capitol in Harrisburg to demand a Gift Ban.
I’m an active volunteer with March On Harrisburg. I’m also the Outings Co-Chair of Sierra Club’s Pennsylvania Chapter and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Group (SPG). Working with other Club leaders across the state, I hear of generations-long battles between Pennsylvania’s residents and powerful entrenched forces that keep our environment in a sorry state. Much of this damage is directly attributable to Pennsylvania’s lack of a Gift Ban, a simple and straightforward way of telling legislators “You may not take bribes.”
Pennsylvania is one of the most corrupt states in the country, one of only 3 that doesn’t have a ban on gifts. In this Commonwealth, working people struggle to afford a decent life, while billionaires and corporations are amassing more wealth than ever and bribing our politicians with lavish gifts, cutting massive checks to their campaigns, and spending billions on secret Super PAC ads.
Legal corruption and lack of a Gift Ban have had a disastrous impact on the environment and peoples' lives and health, state-wide. It shows up in ongoing support for fracking, plastic plants, data centers, and more, at all levels of state government.
We are marching on Harrisburg to demand Pennsylvania lawmakers stop billionaire bribes, and pass a Gift Ban. We are marching to say:
- Enough is enough
- Corporations are NOT people
- Money is NOT speech
- We are tired of corruption and corporate greed
We’re taking power back into our own hands, and marching on Harrisburg to gain healthcare as a human right, a livable wage, affordable housing, a liveable environment, safety, dignity, hope, and so much more. We refuse to allow corruption to continue being a barrier to justice, and a barrier to getting the things we all need to survive and thrive.
In Harrisburg, there are 203 members of the Pennsylvania House and there are over 200 registered lobbyists for the oil and gas industry. Every day that our legislators are in Harrisburg, those lobbyists are ushered into offices, right past constituents, to push legislation. Those lobbyists are not there to improve your access to clean air and water. They are not there to fix the devastation already inflicted on communities across the commonwealth. They aren’t advocating for a future for our children and grandchildren. Those lobbyists are there to buy politicians and increase corporate profits.
Join the March on Harrisburg for the entire march - or just one hour or just one day. And join us at the end of the march, on Monday, May 4th in the State Capitol, where we will wage nonviolent direct action and disrupt the legislative guardians of corruption.
David will also be at the March on Harrisburg, as the SOB for the Society of Oligarch Billionaires, representing the 0.00001%, satirically opposing the Gift Ban. Video hopefully coming soon!
Please visit our online March On Harrisburg resources:
Event Page
March 2026 Graphics
Facebook page
This blog was included as part of the April 2026 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!