Saturday, August 19, 2006

Pryce: Not a Moderate

In yesterday's The Other Paper, there were three letters to the editor that were written in response to a recent article. In a previous edition of The Other Paper, Republican Rep. Deborah Pryce (OH-15) said that "people see me as a moderate" (The Other Paper, 8/10/06). However, the letters dispute Pryce's "moderate" label.

Letter #1 says....
...For years now, Pryce has marched in lock step with such arch right-wingers as Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich and the Bush Cheney White House...

...For the last four sessions of Congress, the League of Conservation Voters rated Pryce's votes as ranging from a poor 18 percent score in 2001-02 to a Neanderthal 6 percent in 2005.


Pryce voted to sell off public lands to mining companies---even lands in our national parks. She's voted to weaken federal pollution laws and cut funding for monitoring and enforcement. She voted to give billions in taxpayer money to energy corporations, despite their record profits. She even voted against tighter standards for arsenic in drinking water....

Letter # 2 points out that....
Conservatives should vote for Mary Jo Kilroy for Congress this November. She is a business owner who has used her private-sector experience to balance Franklin County's budget after years of Republican mismanagement....

Letter #3 states that...
....Pryce has voted with the current administration 88 percent of the time on issues ranging from prescription drugs to energy policy to tax cuts for the ultra-weathy...

Sounds like those letter writers have done their homework on Pryce. She isn't a moderate.

>>>>And from The Washington Post...

Election laws exist to ensure orderly voting and vote counting and to facilitate a democratic process that helps citizens choose their officials. Increasingly, however, election laws are being used not to achieve either of these ends but rather to reduce competition and deprive voters of choices...

...
Similarly, in Ohio, another scandal-plagued Republican, Rep. Bob Ney, dropped his bid for reelection. Republicans endorsed a popular state senator, Joy Padgett, in Ney's place. Democratic lawyers, however, are seeking to keep her off the ballot, and news coverage has focused less on issues and qualifications than on Padgett's right to appear on the ballot.

What is the logic behind keeping her off? In this spring's GOP primary, she ran for lieutenant governor and lost. Ohio has a "sore loser" law intended to keep candidates who are defeated in a primary from running in the general election (as Joe Lieberman is doing in Connecticut). Though the law is clearly not intended to apply to situations such as this, Democrats argue that it does in fact prevent Padgett from running for Congress.

...in Ohio, Rep. Deborah Pryce faces a tough race in a district that President Bush barely carried in 2004. Charles Morrison, a conservative businessman who challenged Pryce in the Republican primary in 2004, sought to get on the ballot this year as an independent. The Republican Party successfully petitioned the state to take Morrison off the ballot on the grounds that he is not an independent but a Republican. The matter is in the courts....

It appears that Pryce and the Republicans will not be able to hide from the truth.