YCOP Anti-Pay Raise Campaign Hits Lebanon-Harrisburg Radio Stations

YCOP Anti-Pay Raise Campaign Hits Lebanon-Harrisburg Radio Stations

Sen. Brightbill, Majority Leader, Responds In Typical Leadership Style – With Arrogance and Denigration.

A Sept 19 Nipped In The Bud Column

By Bud Angst

The flow of criticism of the Pennsylvania legislators’ after midnight, no debate, no warning passage of a bill authorizing their own pay raise has not ebbed and, indeed, is claiming center-stage attention again this week. The state’s legislative leadership, furthermore, is responding in typical fashion: with anger, rancor, and ridicule instead of admission of error, apology and repeal.

It is obviously too much to expect that our legislative leadership will ever admit they, for just this once, were wrong.

The latest lawmaker to flip his lid over the criticism is the Senate Majority Leader, David “Chip” Brightbill, of Lebanon County, where two radio stations are airing ads paid for by YCOP, the Young Conservatives Of Pennsylvania. In the radio ads, YCOP urges listeners to contact Brightbill and ask for a repeal of the legislation authorizing the legislative pay boost that has become known as the “Great Pay Raise Caper of 2005.”

Through the use of billboards and similar radio ads, YCOP’s “Shame Campaign” has already targeted Senate President Pro Tem Robert Jubilirer, R-Blair County; Senate Majority Caucus Chairman Noah Wenger, R-Lancaster County; Senate Minority Leader Robert Mellow, D-Lackawanna County; House Minority Leader, H. William DeWeese, D-Greene County; and House Minority Whip Michael Veon, D-Beaver County. (Don’t even ask how they missed House Majority Whip, Dave Argall, R-Schuylkill, Berks & Lehigh Counties or House Labor Committee Chairman Bob Allen, R-Schuylkill-Berks Counties.)

According to the Harrisburg Patriot-News, when asked about the ads, Brightbill said he was not about to react to an ad he hadn’t heard, but it amazes him that a radio ad justifies a newspaper story.

The senator apparently cannot accept the fact that his own behavior and that of his colleagues justifies both the ad and the newspaper story.

The newspaper also reports that Brightbill dismisses YCOP as an “out-of-the-district group funded by out-of-the-district people whose names are not disclosed.”

Then the Senator takes a somewhat back-handed slap at the radio stations –WHP, Harrisburg; WLBR & WQIC, Lebanon, that are airing the ads. YCOP, he is reported as saying, will “get more out of the Patriot News story than they will from the radio ads.”

Clearly, if the purpose of the radio ads was to get under Brightbill’s skin, they worked.

YCOP is the same group whose attempt to purchase billboard space in Senator Jubilirer’s home district, Blair County, was foiled when the billboard company, Lamar Advertising, refused to accept the ads when it learned they were aimed at the powerful senator.

The billboard company claims its decision did not result from political pressure. And we can believe that. Lamar does enough billboard business with political officeholders to realize that acceptance of the ads would be construed as biting the hand that feeds it. Better to offend a few young hotheads than to jeopardize the good will of a highly placed senator and power broker who has much to say about whose billboards are rented by state agencies and other political candidates.

There’s more to come in the next few days. Lots more – including a 25-foot-high “No Pay Raise Pig” that someone is threatening to display outside the entrance to the state capitol before it is taken on a tour to various lawmakers’ home districts. I wonder: will the tour include stops in Schuylkill County? We have legislators here who are never bashful about calling attention to their leadership roles. Surely, they won’t be overlooked, will they?

Still to come is a rally planned for the front steps of the Capitol next Monday, the 26th, the day the House goes back into session. The idea is to make the reporting legislators run a gauntlet of constituents chanting “Oink, Oink” to commemorate the return of the “Harrisburg Hogs.”

Now that I come to think about it I realize that confrontation may never take place. Lawmakers who were ingenious enough to pass a controversial law behind closed doors at 2:00AM are certainly capable of sneaking into the capital through some overlooked back door. Or even of staying there overnight on a couch in their office. Or of simply reporting for work – did I say “Work?” – a day late.

September promises to be one month none of the legislators will ever forget.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2005 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Opinion.

Source: <http://www.budangst.com/?p=477>

Vice Chairman of Voter Education

http://www.ycop.org

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YCOP/

http://www.InformedPA.com