Remember the old Armed Services posters that had read “Uncle Sam Wants You?” Well, right now “Mercer County Wants You!”
The county needs good people to run for public office.
A front page story in Thursday’s Herald detailed how there appears to be a lack of challengers for the one state senator position and three state representative seats from this area.
Not to say that the incumbents have done a bad job — that’s a matter of conjecture — but the only way to hold an official’s feet to the fire is to challenge him or her each primary and general election.
If no one else runs, that means state Sen. Bob Robbins and Reps. Mark Longietti, Dick Stevenson and Michele Brooks all have a free pass to return to office.
If “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” as they say, then so can allowing people to hold office without assuring that they always do what’s in the best interest of the people back home by providing competition.
We feel strongly that there should be a reduction in the number of seats in the state General Assembly and that there should be term limits imposed. But until that happens, we need to assure that there is competition for those positions.
And because of the vast majority of Democrat or Republican voters in some of these areas, it would be prudent if challengers arose within the party, even without the backing of the party leaders. People wondered how some of our local leaders survived the early morning raises that were granted to themselves a few years ago, which were later overturned. While that storm swept the state and knocked some people from office, that was because people ran against them.
It’s dangerous for anyone to run unopposed.
Just take this past year. Can anyone say they were really happy that the state budget finally passed more than 100 days later than the state constitution demands? People were put out of work and some businesses closed because of it.
But still nobody runs against any of our officials. The incumbents may claim that it wasn’t their fault. Then whose fault was it? The proverbial buck stops on every one of their desks. Perhaps the real culprit in all of this is an apathy that has swept the country. People just don’t want to get involved in politics.
We saw it the last few elections, where there weren’t enough people running for office in some areas for vacant school board or municipal seats. It’s a sad commentary.
But these state offices pay well and have benefits that can’t be matched anywhere — except maybe at AIG.
We can only hope that a few good people step up and challenge the current officials — win or lose — in the next election. It’s the only way to let them know that people in Mercer County are paying attention to what goes on in Harrisburg.
