Free Republic

A six-term Pennsylvania congressman said Tuesday he would not seek a seventh term, calling himself a believer in term limits. Republican U.S. Rep. Todd Platts said he planned to “remain an engaged servant of the people” through the end of the year. Platts, 49, said he has sponsored bills that would have capped terms at 12 years since he arrived in Congress in 2001. His south-central Pennsylvania district is reliably Republican, and Platts, a York native, was a formidable campaigner, thanks to a dedicated cadre of family, friends and other longtime supporters. Platts’ district includes York and Adams counties and...

U.S. Rep. Todd Platts, R-York, announced this afternoon he will not seek a seventh term in office. During his time in office, Platts developed a reputation as a political moderate, who strongly supported the military and veterans. He routinely advocated more transparent government. In 2010, Esquire magazine named him one of the top-10 members of Congress. In the last year, Platts has drawn fire from the York 912 Patriots, a Tea Party group that criticized Platts for supporting the bank bailouts and the stimulus program. Platts, 49, is stepping away before a new district map for the state goes into...

Last week my family and I vacationed in Myrtle Beach. Each day I read the York newspapers online. Once again I read an opinion of Mark Platts about the current eminent domain case. His recent remarks criticizing me, a Lower Windsor Township supervisor and the people of York County who oppose this project displays a true sense of desperation. His attempt to misrepresent the recent poll, where 74 percent of the respondents do not want the county to use eminent domain to take the family home, land and business is wrong. The president of the Lancaster-York Heritage Region, Mark Platts,...

Pay Raiser Stetler Resigns......95th District State Representative Steve Stetler is resigning, effective September 29th..............it is no secret that Stetler was a House member who supported the pay raise, took it and didn't return the money when the raise was repealed........... Central School Superintendent Says She Was 'Misunderstood'...........When the Central York School Superintendent Dr. Linda Estep, made comments about a state law requiring the district to build a new pool in a planned addition to its high school, I suggested an investigation as to the truth of that comment. The "York Dispatch" got an answer from the Pennsylvania Department of Education...

The problem for most Yorkers with the county commissioners' plan for a 725-acre park along the Susquehanna River in Lower Windsor Township is not the park concept itself. It's what the commissioners are willing to do to achieve their aims--take private property and public opposition be damned. The recent York Dispatch public opinion poll indicated that 73.1 percent of those surveyed disagree with the use of eminent domain to develop Lauxmont Farms into a county park--an that only 12.6 percent favor such action. Most York countians obviously are not taking issue with the proclaimed "vision' of the two commissioners behind...

News and Notes from York County....March 5th Science and education interacted in York County last week. I'm talking about the weather. Around 11 O'Clock Monday night snow squalls came across the area and dumped a surprise coating of snow that led to icy spots everywhere. The meteorologists didn't know what was going on (it wasn't in the forecast) until it showed up on radar. School superintendents trusted the science and got burned. For whatever reason, most of them weren't prepared to delay school on Tuesday. My theory, they trusted the science and went to sleep, getting up too late Tuesday...

2006 Congressional Election Cycle Has Begun  50 Republican Incumbents Undeserving of Support by Pro-life Voters   The Republican National Coalition for Life PAC is currently receiving phone calls from Republican candidates for Congress in the 2006 Republican primaries. Our usual practice is to mail our Candidate Questionnaire to Republican candidates in each district as soon as the filing deadlines are reached. When we receive the results of the questionnaire, they are recorded on our website at www.RNCLife.org so that voters can see for themselves it those seeking to represent them in Washington are truly pro-life. We hope that this service...