Editor's note: This post has been updated.

About two dozen activists moved into the Governor's Reception Room for six hours on Tuesday demanding Gov. Tom Wolf call lawmakers back to Harrisburg to pass a redistricting reform measure that ends partisan gerrymandering.

The representatives from MarchOnHarrisburg, a non-partisan group pushing for government reforms, said they weren't leaving until the governor called for lawmakers to return to Harrisburg.

But it turned out they did leave, noisily but peacefully and without incident, at close of business escorted by Capitol Police officers.

Upon their arrival around noontime, they entered the reception room and asked to see the governor. They were told he wasn't in his office. Wolf's press secretary J.J. Abbott said Wolf was in Pittsburgh for the day.

However, Wolf's Chief of Staff Mike Brunelle did meet with the protestors around 1 p.m. and told them the governor agrees with their position on the need for redistricting reform. He said he would get back to them about their demand for Wolf to call for a special session. As of 5 p.m. despite repeated phone calls from the protesters, Brunelle didn't respond, said group spokeswoman Emmie DiCicco.

The group came armed with a huge banner that read, "Listen to the People. End Gerrymandering." They held it up in the front of the room as a backdrop to the five protesters who laid on the floor in sleeping bag with words draped on top of them that read: "Wolf call legislators back now."

Rabbi Michael Pollack, executive director of MarchOnHarrisburg, kicked off the protest with a responsive chant, saying, "We are here because some are guilty but all are responsible. This Legislature went home early to go to the beach, to the fair, to the islands. They went home without ending gerrymandering. Some are guilty. All are responsible."

The House on Monday recessed without taking action on legislation calling for a proposed constitutional amendments on redistricting and judicial election reforms that the Senate sent over last week.

That legislation would have established a citizens commission comprising Republicans, Democrats and third-party or independent registrants to handle the task of drawing congressional and legislative district maps after the decennial census.

The same piece of legislation also proposed a separate more controversial constitutional amendment that would establish regional judicial districts from which the state's appellate court judges would be elected.

The protesters indicated they want to see the judicial election reform stripped from the bill so that it only deals with redistricting.

For a constitutional amendment on redistricting reform to have a chance to reach voters for ratification and be in effect for the next reapportionment following the 2020 census, the House and Senate need to pass identical pieces of legislation by July 6 and then again in the 2019-20 legislative session.

But House GOP leaders indicated on Monday that hundreds of amendments offered on the redistricting proposal by House Republicans and Democrats hurt the chance of bringing it up for a vote before the summer break.

House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana County, said he directed staff to continue talks with House Democratic Leader Frank Dermody of Allegheny County to see if the number of amendments could be narrowed over the next few days to allow for a more focused debate on the House floor.

As of Tuesday morning, little progress appeared to have been made on that front, according to a top House GOP staffer.

But the protesters weren't interested in hearing excuses for inaction as they chanted, "The leaders are bought. The leaders are owned. The people need reform and the leaders went home" followed by "One, we are the people. Two, we are united. Three, the Legislature is corrupted."

DiCicco said if they don't get a response from the governor about their demand for calling a special session, the group will return to camp out again.

"All we're asking is for Wolf to force them to come in and then we can see the true colors of the House" members, she said.

When it was pointed out the governor can't compel either legislative chamber to act on legislation, DiCicco said it's an election year and the governor needs to remember that his Republican opponent Scott Wagner is campaigning on a theme of cleaning up Pennsylvania.

"We want Wolf to combat that with actually showing that same sort of leadership," DiCicco said. "He could show that he's a bold leader in forcing them to do their job."