Take Good Notes, Mikey

I wish Mike Fitzpatrick (oops – I should call him “Michael” in this post) would just end the suspense right now and announce his candidacy for the U.S. House in 2008 so he can get ready to run against “Pat” Murphy again.

It is truly getting ridiculous at this point.

The Bucks County Courier Times ran a story on its front page today announcing Mikey’s return to private life, including Mikey’s pledge to be “watching” Patrick since “he made a lot of promises during the campaign.” The story also noted that Fitzpatrick does not plan to run again for county commissioner when a seat becomes available this year.

It’s pretty obvious that this is all pointing in one direction, so with this in mind, I’d like to link once more to this great post that recalls how Mikey’s very first vote in Congress favored weakening existing ethics rules to protect Tom DeLay, who was House Majority Leader at that time.

Compare this to the pledges for lobbying and ethics reform from the incoming Democratic congress noted here, and you find out one important difference between what the Dems plan to do and how the Repugs ignored their oversight function when they ran the show.

And this letter to the editor appeared in the Courier Times over the weekend to drive the point home even further.

Commendations to Congressman-elect Patrick Murphy for standing up for citizens of Pennsylvania and the rest of our nation by renewing his commitment to fight political corruption.

Murphy signed the “Voters First” pledge during the 2006 campaign, promising to put voters ahead of big donors and lobbyists.

Common Cause/PA, PennPIRG and other public interest groups developed the pledge drive to put candidates on record as supporting an end to pay-to-play politics in Washington.

The dominance of wealthy interests in Congress has gotten way out of hand to the point that citizens are losing faith in the integrity of our government.

Fortunately, more elected officials now realize that it will take strong measures to restore the transparency, ethics and responsiveness that citizens expect and that this country needs.

This requires more than strong words, it requires strong actions specifically enacting new laws and guidelines to curb the influence of well-heeled lobbyists in Congress.

The November election provided a clear mandate to end the corruption in Washington. We urge Congressman-elect Murphy to continue on the right track.

Barry Kauffman
Common Cause/Pennsylvania

Beth McConnell
PennPIRG

Ethics reform – just one issue where Congressman Michael Fitzpatrick failed us.

And at the moment, time does not permit me to list all the other issues where he did the exact same thing.

Update 1/3/07: And by the way, the Courier Times printed a Guest Opinion from Mikey this morning as part of his seemingly never-ending farewell tour stating how humbled he was to serve as our House Rep and reminding us once more of all of the legislation he produced. I’ll just let him have his last shot and not bother to respond to stuff that I’ve already answered (and with typical humility, he quotes Winston Churchill, someone also “turned out of office”).

You really have a lot of trouble taking the hint, don’t you Mikey?