Surrender Daylin

This article was published on the Huffington Post on 12/20/2016.

Dear Senator Leach,

You need to leave now. It is not your political positions that are disagreeable, it is you. Our last interactions via text were soul-sucking as they are arrogant. (Please go back and re-read them.)

When former staffers come forward to say you created the hostile work environment, it is very easy to believe.

When you tell a woman with the guts to stand up to you that she a human wrecking ball of hate (Link), you reveal more of yourself than you can imagine. Using humor to advance a point it is a dangerous two-way sword. To be funny you need to reveal a part of yourself to the crowd.

Too often you have used the Sword of Sarcasm to effectively intimidate opposition. When you bully people with that sword an environment of isolation is created. The environment makes it harder for others to come to the aid of your victims. To stand up means risking yourself to be skewered also.

There is no apology or apologists’ gaslighting that can make the damage you cause go away while you retain office.

When I think of Daylin Leach I think of an out-of-control legislator who ran for Congress for a seat that he did not reside. Lawyers can make fancy arguments that there is no law against it. The fact you ran eliminated a female political newcomer, accomplished healthcare professional, Dr. Val Arkoosh. Val lives in the 13th District – the seat you coveted. When you ran you split the votes in Montgomery County to allow a Philadelphian to win the nomination and the seat in Congress.

Hearing you speak at the Fair Districts Dog and Pony Shows, you explain the evils of Gerrymandering in mind numbing detail. You make sure to tell folks there are no Montgomery County residents in Congress. You fail to mention that YOU are the reason there are no Montgomery County residents in Congress. Val’s defeat at your hands makes the charged atmosphere of your office’s misogyny more pungent.

What is even wilder about your Gerrymandering crusade is your group has gone to the Supreme Court to find a way to give you a better district to run for 2018. You don’t like the layout of your District, so you cry to the court to give you a better shot?

While I do not like the layout of your district, it was done legally and upheld by the State Supreme Court in 2011; even rejecting citizen drawn maps that were superior to what we have now.

If your short term plan succeeds you will throw the entire region into chaos. To change the 7th District means to change every other district.

Your long-term plan to fix Gerrymandering (Senate Bill 22) involves having political party leaders exercise a veto power over people who can drawn maps using an unreasonable timetable. If the group of the hand-picked committee cannot come to a resolution a committee of one person gets to draw the maps.

When I approached you to say there was a better way to solve this issue (allowing the public to draw, nominate and elect the maps) I was met with the same derision you mete out to anyone who dares question the Great Daylin Leach.

You rejected my idea, not on its merits; but on the fact I called you out for having run in a district you do not reside. You turned on the patented insult machine.

If I were to return fire against a sitting State Senator, I get crushed. I realize my days of being an activist are over as long as someone like you has power.

You are cut from the same arrogant cloth as Al Franken. People who disagree with you do so for their own reasons and with the bonus of the additional risk of ridicule. They have thought about the topic at hand and have come up ideas you cannot dream of. To shut them off because of your own personal pique means that you have shut off people from their government.

What good is petitioning the government if those officials are sitting at the in-crowd table in the high school lunchroom – looking down and making fun of the nerds, geeks, and others who don’t fit into their little political club?

You are the problem with the government. You have forgotten that you are a public servant and people called “citizens” are your customers. Folks with a business background make a great point that government needs to be run like a business – without good customer service – you are

nothing.

I have known you since the early 90’s. I wrote the databases that got you and other Democrats elected. These databases came into being because we need to allow access for more people into the political system; crowdsource the information so that anyone with the desire could mount a legit campaign against the forces that be. These systems have been perverted to allow you to keep your lunch table clean from the undesirables.

In a state of 13,000,000 people you were one of 50 operating in the Senate. You have had your turn and have blown it. You forget it is a true honor to serve. We are where we are because of an incestuous system that infects those who stay too long. I think we can find your replacement pretty easily.

It is time for you to call your staff together, arrange the farewell party, close the lights, lock the door and turn the keys over to the maintenance crew.

Walk out the door.

I am sure we will see you again on the roster of lobbyists in Harrisburg.

Sincerely,

Joe the Nerd