Courage of Conviction

The folks over at Swannblog attempted to refute the idea that Swann candidacy was not handpicked by the current Republican establishment.  In the post they referred to an article in the Herald Standard.  I’m not going to argue about whether Swann was handpicked or not - that part is over in my mind - it’s like rehashing something you can’t change, so why bother talking about it. 

My beef can be summed up in the first sentence of the Herald’s article:

GOP gubernatorial hopeful Lynn Swann insisted Tuesday he was not handpicked by the state’s Republican establishment and would maintain an independent voice against a Legislature under his party’s control.

The idea that Swann will be an independent voice against a Republican Legislature is ridiculous in my mind.  How could that possibly be considering that he has surrounded himself with people who have a long history of working for these same legislators.  These are the same people reformers have been attempting to make unemployed in Harrisburg.  Why do you think Swann’s reform in dealing with the legislative process is the way it is?  His idea is to impose a 72-hour waiting period before the governor signs a bill into law. 

This protects the legislature - gee I wonder who came up with that idea - probably someone who has worked for the legislature and will be going back to their regular job when the campaign is over.  When a bill reaches the governor’s desk, it’s too late for public comment.  a 72-hour waiting period would not have stopped Rendell from signing the pay raise into law.  It was the legislature who violated the Constitution in the way they passed the bill and by using unvouchered expenses.  How would a 72-hour waiting period have changed that?  It wouldn’t have.  The pressure needs to fall back on the legislature to abide by the Constitution each member swears to uphold.  It wasn’t the governor who violated constitutional process, it was the legislature.  Should he have signed the bill into law?  No, but that’s not the point.  The point is that the reform needs to happen in the legislature first - Swann’s proposal falls far short. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. 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.