California Conservative

Most people think that that’s an acronym for a Republican In Name Only. While it certainly means that, it means Reform In Name Only, too. Here’s what first got me thinking about that new definition of the acronym:

The committee approved House Bill 443. In its original intent, this measure would have improved Pennsylvania’s weak open-records law. But when the Democratically controlled committee was through with it, House Bill 443 had become a step backwards. Considering that the existing open-records law is among the weakest nationwide, that is a depressing fact.

Both the committee’s process and the content of the bill are outrageous. Committee Chair Babette Josephs, D-Philadelphia, pushed through amendment after amendment, most of which the members were seeing for the first time. Their cumulative effect was to exempt broad categories of state records from being open. When members of the committee pleaded with Rep. Josephs to slow down by either holding more hearings or not reporting the bill to the floor for a quick vote, she refused.
Alarmingly, at one point she even said she could not do so because the Democratic leadership (Majority Leader H. William DeWeese, D- Waynesburg) didn’t want to. So much for caucus leaders sharing power. One other point about the committee chair: She had the nerve to address a pro-open records rally on Tuesday as a reform leader…and then led the way as the committee rammed through this travesty.

Here’s my commentary later in that post:

It’s time that Pennsylvania voters rallied around a true reform agenda, not a RINO (Reform In Name Only) agenda. It’s obvious that Democrats like Babette Joseph and Bill DeWeese are intent on sabotaging the biggest reforms. My guess is that they’re more interested in privacy than transparency.

It’s my contention that these folks are mimicking the tactics used by Democrats in passing earmark/ethics ‘reform’. They pass legislation that has a great title, then gut the bill from having any effect in real life. This type fo tactic won’t work with the new paradigm. An Army of Davids can read bills. We’re approaching expert status in putting the pieces of the various policy puzzles together.

Thanks to Al Gore’s inventing the internet, we can read all kinds of source documents outlining policies and legislation. It’s only a matter of time before we expose bogus reform legislation. People like Bill DeWeese, Tony Sertich, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can’t hide information from us.

The even worse news for these control addicts is that this Army of Davids gets upset when someone tries pulling a fast one on people. When we get upset, we get working on that spinmeister’s defeat. In Sertich’s case, he’s in a safe seat. He’s essentially untouchable. When we can’t defeat the Tony Sertiches (Nancy Pelosi works, too) of the world, we tie their liberal, anti-transparency votes around other people’s necks.

Freshmen who frequently vote with Sertich will suffer because we’ll tell these freshmen’s constituents about all the votes they cast against common sense spending bills. These freshmen will suffer when they frequently vote for unsustainable spending increases, too.

We demand transparency. We demand reform. We demand sensible spending priorities. We demand that politicians keep taxes low on everyone so that the businessman and the worker prosper. These aren’t timid suggestions; they’re demands. We aren’t asking for the world. We’re just demanding politicians use common sense in doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Based on the low approval ratings of the House and Senate, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that politicians that don’t heed us face an uphill fight next November.

Technorati Tags: RINO, Reform In Name Only, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Bill DeWeese, Babette Joseph, Trtansparency, Reform, John Murtha, Status Quo, Election 2008, Glenn Reynolds, Army Of Davids

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Corruption, Election 2008, Liberals, Pelosi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.