Once again Rep. Marguerite Quinn (R143) has emailed NEWS YOU CAN USE. As always she is very social; meeting with seniors, adoring of the military, pointing out when your taxes are due, and telling us when trout season opens this year. Her NEWS is chatty and basic and just like her terms in the Pennsylvania legislature, empty of political energy. Empty of political importance. EMPTY.
Rep. Quinn does the Republican thing. She always votes the party line, makes no news; doesn't even champion issues in which she believes. Perhaps. Other than her being a Republican do we have any idea what she believes? She smiles and makes nice; doesn't get involved and gets re-elected every time.
How can this be? Due to gerrymandering the 143rd is a District that looks like a raggedy sock on a map. By 2012 re-districting by the Republicans had really changed the map. Oops. There went New Hope, and most of the populous townships. But a large lake and a park are INCLUDED! No chance of any Democratic majorities in Lake Nockamixon. Gerrymandering has caused constituents in and around the 143rd to be stuck with an empty raggedy sock that is sent to Harrisburg over and over, term after term.
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Gerrymandering makes certain that the 143rd is a safe district for the Republicans. If you didn't understand before how gerrymandering affects the voter, Rep. Quinn's blindly mundane NEWS is a lesson every month. Local voters have been vigorously screaming about the cultural horrors that are crying for attention all around us. But they are yelling pointlessly into a raggedy sock. No sound seems to get past that patched-up holey wall. While women were marching for Choice and Fair Pay, the Representative from the our raggedly sock was voting FOR the most draconian law in the land and IGNORING not only the minimum wage, but all the state budget problems, and all the issues surrounding a pipeline across a river that provides water for 12 million people. The poignant picture of the concerned citizens on the New Hope-Lambertville Bridge over the Delaware did not make Quinn's NEWS YOU CAN USE this month.
Here's the thing. Gerrymandered districts shut out concerned voters and tend to elect FOREVER legislators. The Representative from the 143rd, along with other raggedy sock districts, just continue on their empty way at a time when our schools need attention, our roads and bridges are falling apart, our environment is threatened and Pennsylvania is in a deep fiscal hole. Forget that. One thing the FOREVER legislators can count on is big DONORS who help them understand that there should be never be taxes on oil, gas, higher incomes, or any issue that is protected by high gear lobbying. God forbid!
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And here's some news you CAN use. The clock is ticking. November of 2018 is the time to replace raggedy sock FOREVER legislators. Starting NOW. Concerned voters are essential in furthering the NON-partisan effort to require that district lines be drawn by an independent commission. In just a little less than two years the 143rd voters can seize the momentum, help to fold up the career of at least one of the Forever Republicans and repair the raggedy sock misrepresentation caused by gerrymandering. That will be news!
Ann Melby Shenkle
Doylestown
