Lawmakers in the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives have officially declared 2023 the year of Taylor Swift.
House Resolution 282, which “recogniz[es] the year 2023 as the ‘Taylor Swift Era’ in Pennsylvania, was approved on December 13, which was also Swift’s 34th birthday. It passed 103-100. Most Republicans and a handful of Democrats voted against the measure.
Speaker Rep. Joanna McClinton (D), who is from Philadelphia County, responded to detractors by mimicking Swift’s lyrics and saying, “Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate,” per the Associated Press.
Swift was born and raised in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Her family moved to a suburb of Nashville when the pop star was 13 so she could pursue her dream of singing. The resolution was created to honor Swift’s contributions to the state.
The measure declared that Swift has “transcended the role of pop star,” and claims she “shines as a role model of courage, self acceptance and self-determination, persisting in the face of personal and professional obstacles and challenges.”
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Democratic Rep. Maureen Madden of Monroe County was a supporter of the resolution. She also mentioned how Swift has been mobilizing young fans to get register to vote.
“I turn 64 years old today, and I think about who’s going to carry on our legacy. She’s not popular because she writes break-up songs,” Madden said in defense of the resolution, per AP. “She’s popular because the largest demographic of people eligible to vote, the 18- to 24-year-old demographic, listens to her and does what she says.”
Vote.org credited Swift in September for their largest voter registration day ever after she posted about it on her Instagram.
“We saw a 1,226% jump in participation the hour after Taylor Swift posted. Our site was averaging 13,000 users every 30 minutes — a number that Taylor Swift would be proud of,” Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey said at the time, as The Daily Wire previously reported.
Swift was private about her political leanings until 2018 when she began openly supporting Democratic candidates after facing public pressure for keeping them secret. The “Bad Blood” singer endorsed Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election.