199th update
Another update for the 199th House Seat. Still no sign of life from State Rep. Will Gabig. I’ve seen very few yard signs, and at this point it wouldn’t even be effective to put them out, the impact would be negative in fact. People would see it as a bit confusing I suspect - as in why didn’t he get his act together earlier. The window of opportunity has past for that - which means he probably didn’t spend his money on signs.
I haven’t seen an mailings from Gabig either. I suspect he’ll have one or two before election day, but time is getting short. Bill Cobb, Gabig’s opponent sent out a piece earlier this week that touted his endorsement by The Patriot. The front got the point across, and the back was a bit wordy with the entire editoral endorsement on it - but still it’s the only mailer in this race so far.
The Sentinel has been giving us their endorsements for various races and finally got to the state house races. This was the first year that I can recall that they handled all the state house races in one editorial. The full editorial is here.
The Sentinel decided to endorse Cobb this year. Here’s text relating to the 199th:
In the 199th House district, incumbent Will Gabig faces a strong Democratic challenger in Bill Cobb as well as a Green insurgency from Katrina Heycock. Though Gabig stumbled over the pay grab by initially taking the unvouchered expenses to distribute as charitable contributions, he did vote against the bill and voted to repeal it as well.
In a new term, Gabig will continue to advocate the Commonwealth Caucus’ pipe dream that an expanded sales tax will do away with all property and nuisance taxes. Cobb takes a position we agree with, that sales taxes are regressive, especially as the major source of taxation.
Gabig also continues to press a bill to ban teacher strikes, which Cobb and Heycock oppose. We think there’s a middle ground between those positions.
We’ve endorsed Gabig in past elections, but this year we think he’s facing his best-prepared opponent ever in Cobb, and we’d like to see what Cobb can do in Harrisburg.