Posted on 03/18/2014 5:31:50 AM PDT by Nextrush
Today is election day for voters in Pennsylvania's 28th State Senate District.
They're voting in a special election that was called suddenly two months ago when sitting Republican State Senator Mike Waugh resigned his 80-thousand dollar plus job to take a 100-thousand dollar plus job as director of Pennsylvania's Farm Show. Waugh was up for re-election this year and was not planning on running for a fifth term.
His resignation led to the calling of a special election two months ahead of the scheduled May primary.
It was common knowledge in political circles that local businessman Scott Wagner whose money was helping Tea Party candidates in York County and across Pennsylvania was planning to be a candidate in that primary election.
A Special Election situation in PA gives the party committee people power to pick the party candidate, not the party's voters in a primary.
It came as very little surprise that the political insiders picked State Representative Ron Miller as candidate for the election.
The Democrat insiders picked Linda Small as their candidate.
But this did not deter Tea Party activist Scott Wagner, who decided to take on what many perceived as a rigged process to give the State Senate seat to Miller and make him the incumbent senator for the May primary.
Wagner declared himself a write-in candidate for the special election and poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars, most of it his own, to try for a victory today.
Wagner also got support from the Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania which ran ads on radio critical of the process that created a special election controlled by the Republican political machine.
The cost of the special election (200-thousand dollars) was also criticized.
The GOPe fought back with a massive ad campaign costing into the hundreds of thousands blasting Wagner as a "millionaire trashman" (he owns Penn Waste) who was trying to buy an election.
More recently they're run ads using an elderly woman who calls Wagner "a bully" because he sued her to collect the mandatory trash fee (tax) imposed by her township even though she doesn't use the trash service.
Wagner has passionately argued that unions run Pennsylvania to the detriment of the state's economy.
Evidence of that came in two YES votes that GOPe candidate Miller was involved in as a State House member.
One in 2001 involved Act 9 which was signed into law by then Governor Tom Ridge, hiking the pensions of unionized state workers and school employees by 25 percent along with a 50 percent hike in legislators pensions (Miller now qualifies for a 45-thousand dollar one for his 16 years in the legislature).
Miller was supported for re-election in the years that followed by the Pennsylvania State Education Association teachers union.
His more recent pro-union vote came last year supporting a "Transportation Funding Bill" that was signed into law by current Republican Governor Tom Corbett.
The 2.4 billion dollar plan raised gasoline taxes by 28 cents a gallon. Conservatives in the House tried to limit the spending to 1.1 billion dollars focused on road and bridge repair but the tax and spend plan won out.
Much of the money raised by the new gasoline tax that Miller voted for will flow to the mass transit systems and their unionized workers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other cities.
Scott Wagner wants to revisit the gas tax bill and wants to reform the out of control pensions.
Can he pull off a write-in win against the GOPe????
We shall see but it is a tall order.
Will you PLEASE let us know,tomorrow, the outcome of this Election.
I’ll have to post something tomorrow morning.
The Tea Party candidate in this race had good financial resources.
But getting enough people to write-in the name is the challenge.
A lot of people are angry about the rigged process and the GOPe’s negative ad campaign against Scott Wagner.
sunofaB................~!!!!!
Put me on your ping list for the results of this election!
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