Posts Tagged → Pennsylvania
Sunday Hunting
Two weeks ago I was hunting and fishing in Alaska. Moose, sheep, goat, and grizzly seasons all began on a Sunday, and my religious, Evangelical friend and I were right there opening morning, rifles in hand, ready. Now, Alaska may be the world’s most prominent destination for hunting and fishing, and hunting and fishing may be significant parts of the state’s economy, but don’t you think it says something that the hunting seasons for the most sought after species all began on Sunday?
No one blinked an eye, no one gnashed their teeth, no one howled at the sky about the supposed sacrilege, the horribleness of it all. People in Alaska either hunt on Sunday, or they choose not to hunt on Sunday, and they do not make a huge whiny federal case about it. They are adults about it.
Like Alaska, nearly every other state in the United States has Sunday hunting. Unlike here in Pennsylvania, where for some inexplicable reason a lot of annoying busybody people in politics believe it is their job to police how we grownups spend our Sundays. These people have made Sunday hunting, and only hunting, not sports or fishing or drinking at bars or whatever else, a very difficult thing to do in Pennsylvania. Unless you are from Schuylkill County, where everyone does it, law be damned, and no is ratting out anyone else about it.
On October 1st, next Tuesday, the PA House Game and Fisheries Committee is holding a hearing on a Sunday hunting bill that will allow the Pennsylvania Game Commission to set game seasons any day of the week, including Sundays, if that makes the most sense to our professional game managers. You are encouraged to contact the PA House Fish & Game Committee members and let them know what you want: You want hunting freedom like almost every other state in the USA, you want to make your own choices about how to spend your precious Sundays, you want to be able to hunt without having to take time off from your week day job.
You can also join or financially support Hunters United for Sunday Hunting, a group I used to have a long founding association with, and which I am still indebted to for their hard work trying to establish freedom here in PA.
Pennsylvania should be able to join the 20th century, at least, on this issue. Pennsylvania is after all the Keystone State and the cradle of American democracy and FREEDOM.
Had my day in court
Literally had my day in court yesterday, in the Dauphin County courthouse in Downtown Harrisburg. After nearly ten years of taxpayer-funded expensive stonewalling and dodging and delaying, Harrisburg City’s expensive taxpayer-funded attorneys (Lavery) were forced to actually litigate.
Harrisburg City was forced to actually argue for and explain why it has maintained three patently illegal ordinances on the books for years. At issue are city ordinances that criminalize carrying guns in a public park, discharging a firearm within the city limits, and failing to report a lost or stolen gun.
Each of these ordinances is subject to state pre-emption, because Pennsylvania state law clearly prohibits any political subdivision, like Harrisburg City, from creating its own gun regulations. This is in order to avoid a crazy-quilt pattern of gun laws within a state, where just crossing from one municipality to another, one township to the township next door, with a firearm, could result in an unintentional felony and violent arrest and incarceration. No society can operate like that, whether it’s gun regulations, abortion regulations, car regulations etc.
So, somehow the elected officials of Harrisburg City believed they were above the law, and they passed these illegal city ordinances. A group I belong to FOAC-ILLEA and Firearms Owners Against Crime, filed suit against the city many years ago, to compel the city to remove these illegal ordinances. After all, what is the purpose of having illegal laws on the books? What is the purpose of having illegal laws on the books, and actually spending hundreds of thousands of Harrisburg taxpayer dollars fighting to keep said illegal laws in place?
I will tell you why these ordinances are on the books: Harrisburg City wants to have the threat of these ordinances to use against people the city doesn’t like. People with different political beliefs, maybe the wrong skin color, maybe the wrong religion, you name it, these illegal ordinances can and will be used by city leaders for purely political and punitive purposes.
Even if the city charges someone with these ordinances and eventually loses in court, the city will still have won. Because the criminal process is the punishment. Simply dragging someone through the expensive, scary legal process from being arrested and handcuffed, having their person and home ransacked by police, being jailed, having to get a lawyer, maybe losing your job, is pretty bad punishment. So even if the city eventually loses a criminal prosecution with any of these ordinances, they will have really hurt someone.
And that is the purpose of ALL liberals everywhere, to scare and control and punitively hurt and damage people who disagree with them. Especially gun owning individuals who represent an armed citizenry capable of pushing back against tyrannical government. Like all liberal-run Democrat Party bastions everywhere across America, Harrisburg City desires to control its citizens, not represent them.
And so yesterday we finally got to sit in Judge Andrew Dowling’s court room and have a real, genuine legal offense-defense. It was something out of a Hollywood movie, with real court room drama, an occasionally piqued or openly amused judge, a sharp litigator (Joshua Prince) and a defense attorney who – no lie, no embellishment here – actually bellowed “I am being bushwhacked! This is an ambush!” after the judge reminded him that he was the attorney who said let’s move this trial to this date today.
Being the plaintiff of record from Harrisburg City itself, I had my opportunity to testify from the witness stand. I was cross examined at length, sometimes with real humor, by the defense counsel. I really don’t believe myself to be a “lawbreaker” when I am defying a patently illegal law, and it was nice to see the attorney have to concede that. I also enjoyed recounting how, during the catastrophic flood of 2011, I walked up and down my block and adjoining blocks with a shotgun and a handgun, to deter looters. That raised eyebrows, and led to an interesting line of questioning from the defense counsel and thumbs-up from my fellow plaintiffs.
Other plaintiffs, Howard Bullock, who lives outside Harrisburg City but who works within it, and Jim Stoker, president of FOAC, also took the witness stand, and were also cross-examined. All three of us did well representing our case. And the bushwhacked lawyer who raised ridiculous objection after ridiculous objection, including once to his own statements (the judge kindly reminded him that he was now arguing against himself), was clearly deflated after Judge Dowling said he would issue a decision on this trial.
Nearly ten years of Harrisburg taxpayer gravy train defending the indefensible are about to end for Lavery Law! And for me, the rule of law is being established, our flag of freedom being firmly planted in a small county court room far from the public eye. Not one news reporter was present, not one City employee, nobody but us freedom fighters, the judge and his staff, and the hapless bushwhacked lawyer.
Once again the forgotten taxpayer is out of sight, out of mind, though a holding of any sort in this case will then raise questions about why Harrisburg City spends hundreds of thousands of rare taxpayer dollars so frivolously and carelessly.
It was a great day for the law and a great day to be in court forcing the law to be upheld by striking illegal laws from the books. Thanks to attorney Joshua Prince for representing the rule of law, and to Judge Dowling for running his court room fairly and often with real humor and sharp observations.
(L to R) Plaintiff Howard Bullock, attorney Joshua Prince, attorney Kevin Fenchak, attorney Dillon Harris, plaintiff Yours Truly Josh First, and plaintiff Jim Stoker of FOAC fame in the Dauphin County courthouse yesterday.
Fallen apples
Recently drove to Upstate New York and back, and the country roads everywhere were loaded with apple trees. Especially in New York, and less so in Pennsylvania.
The apple trees were growing alongside the roads because most of the roads were built along the original dirt tracks that connected farms. And farms always had apple trees growing as an important source of food. The farms are largely gone, and the dirt farm lanes have become paved public roads, but the trees remain, and for whatever reason this is a banner season. Lots of production, lots of beautiful delicious apples of every variety and sort.
What intrigued me was not just how many trees held apples that had not been picked by people, but how many trees had apples gathering at their base. Piles of fallen apples at tree after tree, many of which were in front of or right next to homes. The apples were just lying there rotting in the hot summer sun, and no one cared. No one was picking them up to use them.
My family members chuckled at my constant outbursts about these beautiful apple trees and their abandoned apples both on the ground and on the branches. But what do my kids know about having to forage for food? I grew up in a time and a place where no food was ever wasted, discarded, or thrown away. Or worse, ignored. Apple trees were always picked clean by somebody, if not by many people, for home made applesauce and canned sliced apples, or for fresh apple pies.
I have never seen apples go to waste in my life, until now.
The idea that literally tons of free delicious, organic fruit is just sitting there and rotting within arm’s reach of the public way is anathema to me. For miles and miles and miles. It is a literal shame, and it casts a shadow over the American culture that has emerged from ubiquitous junk food and over-abundance.
It is almost as if these miles and miles of fallen, rotting, abandoned apples are symbolic of our rotting, fallen, bloated, pudgy and lazy culture. Everyone has more than they need, and so they just ignore the free healthy and abundant food that Mother Nature and past farmers have bequeathed to us now, if only we get out of our speeding vehicles for five minutes to gather some.
America and its apples, falling. I think the whole world sees it, and our people don’t.
Only ballots matter, not candidates, not votes, not polls or surveys
With Dementia Joe Bribem dropping out of the election today, the scramble is on to replace him with a credible candidate. Apparently the fur is flying within Democrat Party circles, as people jockey and push to get their preferred candidate nominated.
It doesn’t matter who they choose- Kamala, Hillary, Gavin Newsom. Absolutely none of the potential Democrat candidates make any difference. Puppetmaster Barack Hussein Obama can literally choose Mickey Mouse and still have a good shot at “winning” the November election.
This is due to the fact that the Democrat Party with its RINO enablers perfected voter fraud in 2020, and with even just half of their fraudulent methods enabled again this November, they have a good chance of declaring their candidate, anyone, the winner.
Literal ballot stuffing and voting machine “glitches” in 2020 and 2022 are probably sufficient in 2024 to spam Election Day counting so that regardless of questions raised, the corrupt Democrat establishment media can rush to declare a winner and force it through.
Ballots are all that matter now. Not polls and surveys, not votes, not even voters really matter. Cartloads of fake ballots will still be counted in favor of whomever the Democrat candidate is, just as we watched on video in 2020 in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Arizona.
Here in Pennsylvania, Governor Shapiro is rushing to enable a lot of disqualified illegal aliens to vote, by issuing them driver’s licenses and then having automatic motor-voter registration. Get a driver’s license, automatically get registered to vote for more Democrat Party largesse. And it’s actually more diabolical than this. Up in Williamsport a new illegal alien processing center has been set up. These new and very illegal Democrat voters will then be shipped off to conservative political districts, where they will dilute and replace the actual citizens there.
The Democrat Party and its RINO Uniparty “deep state” allies cannot afford to lose this election. Because their mask is off, we all see who they are and what Marxist totalitarian evil they are intent on committing, and if they lose the election, we know exactly what to do to neuter their ill-gotten gains. So everything is on the line for the administrative state, and for We, The People.
Never before has this blog called for American patriots to “ammo up,” at least that I can recall. But now I will say it: Prepare fully for the very worst effort to steal the election and thereby to steal America in the next few months. Talk with your trusted friends and faith community about sticking together in the event of a catastrophic emergency. Be like the original Minute Men; be ready. You have probably lost your vote, and now all you have is your one finger and something to pull with it. That’s the only thing totalitarians respect.
If you doubt me on how bad these people are, look at Joe Biden now: Stepping out of the campaign because he’s got dementia, but staying in the presidency because he wants to. Even though he has dementia and is not qualified to stay there. This is all about Democrat Party power over America, not about what is best for our nation.
PA Game Commission changing leadership
Kind of a wildlife management wild ride here in the Keystone State, though it is tough to tell if anyone really noticed or if anyone really cared. I care. People who care about animals should care.
In just a few weeks the Pennsylvania Game Commission has gone from from a very traditional conservation leadership style and background to a new style and background we have not seen in over a hundred years. I think this is a good thing, though I am sad about how it happened.
Recall that several months ago, attorney Steve Smith was promoted from director of the PGC’s Bureau of Information to deputy director of the agency, second in command to executive director Bryan Burhans. A good choice, as Smith is the very image of the dutiful, honest, earnest, hard working, straight shooting, unemotional, careful, procedurally diligent government employee. While PGC is a long way from the colorful Wild West frontier culture it once had, it still has a shadow of a bunker mentality and insular culture that do not serve the agency, its employees, or the public, and Steve is not representative of that.
Where Bryan Burhans had worked at the American Chestnut Foundation and other iconic conservation and wildlife management groups, with direct personal contacts in the nonprofit and foundation world, Steve Smith is an attorney who just happens to hunt, fish, and trap, and of course share the wildlife and habitat conservation ethos that animates hunters, trappers, and “fisherpeople” everywhere.
A devoted family man, Smith worked in private legal practice before joining PGC’s legal staff about 16 years ago. Where Burhans carried the mail for nonprofit advocacy groups both out of PGC and in it, which is the traditional model for wildlife management agency leaders across America, Smith has been long focused on public agency nuts and bolts. Dotting I’s and crossing T’s in the shadow of big speeches and public policy debates.
There is a gigantic world of difference between these two men, Bryan and Steve; their backgrounds, personalities, and outlooks could not be more different. Again, we are going from strength to strength with the change.
Bryan Burhans gets tons and tons of credit for gently, sometimes assertively molding the PGC into a more publicly accessible, publicly responsive public agency. Unlike most of his predecessors, Bryan was not a former Game Warden. And so from his own get-go seven years ago he was less insular, less committed to the law enforcement view of all things wildlife.
Yes, if you read some news reports about Bryan’s departure a couple weeks ago, you will then read about some state lawmakers griping that the agency is still not as accessible or responsive as the PA Fish & Boat Commission. I am sure that is true, and for good reasons. But compared to where the once insular and bunker-mentality PGC was, say, ten years ago, or especially twenty-five years ago, it is light years better now. Much improved. And, gasp if you must, the PGC actually now employs women in senior positions. This may be not big news to most people, but it is a fact that wildlife agencies are notoriously hide-bound and ultra traditional, the PGC having rung the bell in this regard for a long time. Celebrated wildlife biologists like Mary Jo Casalena may work for PGC, but it is as rare as hen turkey teeth that they also then get into senior management positions.
What is interesting about Steve Smith’s elevation to executive director upon Bryan’s departure is that we are actually seeing Pennsylvania wildlife management style return back to the days of Kolbfus and Pinchot – Americans without the supposedly key wildlife science “credentials” who simply care very much about wildlife, environmental quality, and habitat, and who have the intellectual capacity and personal management skills to implement the necessary policies.
PGC’s executive director is going from an outspoken advocate (albeit occasionally for things unrelated to wildlife management) to a quiet, humble, careful, almost reticent thinker. I am lamenting Bryan’s good-bye, because he did an outsanding job, and I am also really welcoming Steve’s hello. I believe that the many passionate watchers and stakeholders of PGC will be happy with Steve’s leadership there. Of course, those hunters who demand more deer than the landscape or society can sustain will never be satisfied, and I feel sorry for those people.
Update: Long and interesting interview with new ED Steve Smith is here.
Next Tuesday 2A rally in Harrisburg
Don’t forget that next Tuesday 4/30/24 is the annual Second Amendment rally here in Pennsylvania. Be out on the state Capitol front steps at 9:00am.
Why is this gathering of freedom-minded Americans important? Because it sends a message to would-be tyrants that at least some of us We, The People are not asleep at the wheel. We are involved and engaged with those who govern us, and those who want to rule over us.
Hope to see you there.
talkin turkey
Spring Turkey Season is almost upon us here in Pennsylvania, and around the country. A great deal of the wild turkey breeding season is already behind us, and the significant challenge of calling in a “lovesick tom” at the tail end of the breeding period is now laid before several hundred thousand dedicated and novice turkey hunters alike, here in PA.
Couple of reminders, and one big observation:
- Please do not drive up and down country roads making hen calls out the window of your vehicle, waiting to hear a gobble in response. While it may bring some hunters a premature auditory orgasm to hear the lusty gobbler responses, all this activity really does is educate turkeys about fake calls by fake hen turkeys. And when tom turkeys get unnecessarily educated by guys peeing in their pants with excitement, said toms become a zillion times harder to hunt and bag. It takes the fun out of an already difficult hunt. Don’t do it. Please.
- Clearly identify your male turkey’s red or white head before pulling the trigger on its neck. If all turkey hunters only pulled the trigger when they had absolutely positively identified their target, there would be no heartbreaking hunting accidents during spring turkey season. And when you read the facts surrounding those hunting accidents or negligent shootings, you realize that some people are about to pee in their pants with excitement and so they shoot a human being “in mistake” of a turkey. By only putting our trigger finger on the shotgun trigger when the gobbler’s head is both clearly visible and in range, we bypass a lot of dangerous excitement.
Finally, in a certain nook up north, I have been enjoying the sounds once again of spring gobblers sounding off for probably six weeks now. Few have been the wild turkey gobbles there over the past ten to twelve years, an absence always correlated with the physical evidence of a resident fisher. In other words, fishers have eaten the hell out of our wild turkeys, and only after someone traps the local fisher do the turkey populations begin to rebound. This fact has been driven home for me year after year across southcentral, central, and northcentral PA; fishers have been real hard on our wild turkeys.
Not to say that fishers don’t have a place in Penn’s Woods, they do, of course. But the policy implications of widespread fishers should have been better considered before the giddiness of super-predator 100% ecosystem saturation overtook wildlife managers in the late 1990s and early 2000s. And now Pennsylvania is contemplating releasing pine martens into Penn’s Woods…..knowing already that they eat the hell out of grouse, and that PA’s grouse are in very bad shape.
I don’t mind having a decent population of fishers and pine martens up north in the Big Woods, where they will have the least amount of impact on other wildlife across the entire state. What I do object to is sacrificing the enormous wild turkey conservation success story on the altar of “more predators are better than few” mindset of some wildlife managers. Sometimes, we just have to accept that we can’t wind the clock back to the year 1650, or even 1750, because the few successes we have managed to rack up, like wild turkeys brought back from extinction, is as good as it can get.
Sometimes, good is good enough, and the rest we just need to leave well enough alone.
A fisher in New Hampshire, from wikipedia. Fishers are giant weasels. They eat everything.
Central PA candidates on the ballot
Because I am a “politico” actively involved in politics, friends, family, and strangers ask my opinion on candidates running for political office.
Here are the people I am voting for on next week’s Republican primary election ballot:
President: Donald J. Trump, of course. President Trump is all that stands between We, The People and chaos and the forced failure of America as the representative constitutional republic we have enjoyed since 1789.
Attorney General: Dave Sunday. He has a strong 2A background and is endorsed by Gun Owners of America, whereas his opponent has a very poor 2A record.
Congress: Scott Perry. Scott continues to reliably do what an elected official is supposed to do. He has gotten a lot quieter since the lawless Democrat Party thugs known as “FBI agents” stopped his car and stole his cell phone from him at gunpoint last year. Nonetheless, Scott continues to vote for We, The People, like voting against the FISA renewal. FISA has been used by the FBI to conduct lawless, warrantless domestic spying against everyday American citizens.
US Senator: Mickey Mouse. I literally wrote in Mickey Mouse because the GOPe endorsed and orchestrated puppet strings candidate whose name appears on the ballot spent time and money to knock off the ballot several other candidates who would have competed with him in this primary race. What a scumbag.
Auditor General: Tim DeFoor. Tim is a solid citizen and one of the very few now career politicians I can support. I have watched him work his way through the political process, and though he is not ideological, he comes to his traditional views honestly, from the way he grew up, which I can respect.
State Senator: Nick DiFrancesco. This is a newer version of the state senate district seat I ran for in 2012 and 2015, and I have a lot of familiarity with its voters. Nick is an all-around politico who has been a Dauphin County commissioner and has held other publicly visible positions of trust. Nick is presently Dauphin County treasurer, and I believe he represents the only chance normal taxpaying citizens in our region have to stop far-left radical Patty Kim from inheriting this seat in a heavily gerrymandered district made just for her. The other candidate is Ken Stambaugh, who I have had the pleasure of speaking with at length and staying in touch with. Heck of a nice man, good intentions, and not a political animal. My opinion is Ken would stand zero chance against Patty Kim. I yearn for the days when America would naturally and easily elect good people like Ken to office, but unfortunately spring 2024 is as far away from those old days as America can get. We need political warriors.
State Treasurer: Stacy Garrity. Wish we had a primary opponent just for voter choice.
Representative in General Assembly (State House 103rd district): Cindi Ward. Wish we had a primary opponent just for voter choice.
Representative in General Assembly (State House 100th district): Dave Nissley. Failed incumbent and career political hack Bryan Cutler has been a disaster for central Pennsylvania voters who care about good policy and clean politics. Cutler got into elected politics at a very young age, and he just learned bad habit after bad habit along the way. Dave Nissley is by far the better man and the better candidate, and he has been endorsed by Gun Owners of America.
Delegate to the Republican National Convention: Jeff Haste, Sue Helm, George Margetas, and Charlie Gerow. Both Jeff and Sue are well known central PA pro 2A advocates. George Margetas is a local attorney who like so many of us went along with the covid tyranny mask nonsense in 2020, but who then bucked it publicly afterwards when it was clearly evident that covid was about political control and not about public health. I like a strong man who stands up for freedom. Last but not least is well known local politico and lobbyist Charlie Gerow, who I have known for many years and who is one of the few lobbyists I actually like.
The other RNC candidates have either zero about them available online, which tells us they are hiding, fakes, RINOs, or Democrats, or they have something about being “a fiscal conservative,” which is always a red flag for social conservatives looking for strong candidates who will represent traditional values and meritocracy. So-called “fiscal conservatives” rarely are, and they are always social liberals. No thanks.
Your political action in 2024, like voting and volunteering for candidates, is as important as 1776
Good rally to make
The annual Pennsylvania 2A rally started in either 1999 or 2000. It was then-Melody Zullinger’s idea, as an act of the PA Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs. Within months the event had been taken over by then-state representative Daryl Metcalfe, and then by Firearms Owners Against Crime’s Kim Stolfer. Kim was the annual face of the rally for close to twenty years.
Now that Kim is gone to hang out with his Marine buddies in the sky, the rally is being promoted the most by Gun Owners of America, a relative newcomer to Second Amendment rights. But GOA is as aggressive as the NRA is tired, and it appears GOA is now claiming ownership of our annual 2A rally.
The political football aspect involved in “owning” this important event says much about the pro-freedom movement’s many faces and facets. What is important is that YOU show up, because irrespective of which person or organization lays claim to this, it is ultimately about YOU and your personal rights.
Hope to see you there.
Pitfalls and pratfalls of primary elections for candidates and volunteers alike
While digging through old stuff in my office recently, I encountered a bag in a corner with a bunch of campaign tee shirts made for volunteers who had helped me run in the 2010 primary race for congress here in central PA. Seeing the pinned-on names on each shirt, I felt embarrassed that somehow I had neglected to get these tokens of appreciation into the hands of those dedicated volunteers. They had donated their time to me, to a campaign they believed in, and it is absolutely incumbent upon all candidates to express appreciation, and show it if they can, to their volunteers, win or lose. Here was evidence that I had failed to do that fully with these several people whose names appeared on the tee shirts, and it made me feel badly.
Fast forward fourteen years, and I have just learned by doing an internet search that a political candidate I had contributed real time and effort to had dropped out of the race last Thursday. This person and I had exchanged many emails and texts for the past month, I had drafted a press release for her, and gotten her about forty ballot petition signatures to help get her on the April 23 ballot. Despite all my time and effort on her behalf, I did not qualify for the email the media says she sent to her supporters, announcing her bowing out of the race. I felt like all my time and effort dedicated to this person was not appreciated or valued, which makes one feel badly.
Dear political candidates, you have to express your appreciation to your volunteers! Volunteers are how every campaign runs, whether it succeeds or fails, and showing your appreciation to the people who make up the campaign is your duty to those people who take time away from their families, their businesses, jobs, etc to help you get ahead. Failing to express appreciation hurts not just your own reputation, but it also leaves your volunteers wondering if they should ever volunteer on a campaign again for anyone else.
I have seen other candidates cold-drop their volunteers when the campaign ends, and even drop their campaign staff. This is usually due to the exhaustion a candidate feels at the end of the race. Campaigns are all brutal exercises, all-out sprints over a relatively short amount of time, and at their end usually everyone involved is feeling tapped out and emotionally drained. It is tough to sustain that high energy after the race ends, but again, dear candidates, you absolutely owe it to your volunteers to say Thank You. An email, some text messages, some cards to the people who put in the most work and hours. Tee shirts if you made them.
What took out this latest candidate I was helping was Pennsylvania’s archaic ballot petition process. Depending upon the office sought (state house, dog catcher, US senate, congress etc) candidates for office in Pennsylvania are required to collect hundreds or even thousands of registered voter signatures on complicated forms where the slightest mistake, mis-spelling, or poorly written word can result in a disqualification. There is an entire arcane process surrounding the screening, challenging, and defending of the ballot petition signatures. The only people who benefit from this are the attorneys who specialize in this arcana, and the two main political parties.
If enough of the candidate’s ballot signatures get disqualified, then the candidate does not achieve the minimal threshold of signatures, and does not qualify to be on the ballot. A lot of hard work and volunteer hours can get flushed down the drain if insufficient signatures are obtained to keep the candidate on the ballot.
PA’s complicated ballot petition process is designed by and for the political parties, which have the experienced volunteers, lawyers, and updated voter lists necessary to get far more signatures than are needed. It is designed to keep political outsiders out of office, and political insiders in.
According to this now un-candidate’s statement in the news article, the attorney who challenged her ballot petition signatures had also threatened to bury her campaign in a pile of legal costs if she tried to fight her way through all the nit-picky challenges. All indications are that US Senate candidate David McCormick is behind this challenge and threat. This is really about a billionaire bully booting pesky candidates out of his way on his path to self-serving elected office.
Yuck.
Pennsylvania voters want choice, and we do not benefit from the current ballot petition process, which was once described to me by a Dauphin County Republican Committee Woman as a necessary precaution to prevent “unqualified people” from running for office.
Said I, “Why don’t we just let anyone run who wants to run? Shouldn’t all citizens have a right to run, aren’t we all qualified? Isn’t that the heart and soul of the democratic process, to keep it as open and accessible to The People as possible?”
Said she, “That sounds like too much democracy to me.”
And so we see yet another victim of this ridiculous gatekeeper process, which both political parties can agree must be kept intact so they can retain maximum control of who gets to run, and who does not. It is really about control, not democracy.
Yuck.
These are some of the pitfalls of running for political office here in Pennsylvania, and while some are unavoidable, it is best to work hard to avoid the pratfalls: Campaign volunteers and supporters will always appreciate and fondly remember a kind word, a nice email or text message saying thanks. And also will they remember that their hard work went unnoticed and unremarked in the end, and so they will feel used.
Double yuck.