Well, IT’S MONDAY! again. First, let me thank all of our committee members who participated in our scheduled petition signing events or helped by knocking on doors and asking voters to sign for our great candidates. It was a very successful campaign. The petitioning process is what allows interested parties to declare their intent to run for office. The act of collecting signatures shows your intent to actively seek the position. You may need as few as 10 signatures to compete for a local job, such as boro council or school board. You will need 100 signatures to vie for a county position and a thousand names to run for a state-wide or Federal slot. The process is beneficial to county parties like us. We have a chance to support candidates we believe in and introduce them to the voters. That generates interest in the candidates and encourages people to get out and vote.
I would like to discuss an issue that seems to be making its way to an important role in the 2024 election cycle, and that is the First Amendment and the rights associated with it. To make it short and to the point, it grants us freedom of expression and it matters not whether it is through the press, personal speech, artistic expression, or the educational process. That freedom also includes the ability to criticize that with which we do not agree. When you are being lied to, you have the freedom, or maybe even the obligation to challenge that in an open forum without fear of reprisal.
What is concerning is that several actions are making their way through the legislatures of states controlled by Republicans that seek to abridge those rights in education, personal health care, private life, and even to the business world. Republicans claim they want a smaller Government but insist on insinuating themselves into boardrooms as well as bedrooms. All these little intrusions into free speech and free expression have not been like taking a sledgehammer to a wall but are more like a ball peen hammer and a chisel chipping away at the stone. The actions become normalized and at some point, the wall collapses due to the failure of the stone. When that happens there will be no one left to tell us the truth.
The way we prevent this from happening is to stand up for the truth and what we believe. Our ultimate weapon is the ballot box. We must increase our voting percentage, it does make a difference. Every election, every vote!
As always, PARTICIPATE! DONATE! VOTE!
John Huot, JeffDems Chairperson
CALENDAR
February 14 – March 7 – Petition-signing for PA statewide judicial positions, county, and local offices. Brockway will gather signatures door-to-door.
March – Executive Board Meeting TBA
DONATIONS ACCEPTED
JeffDems Chairperson, John Huot, recently mailed a donation request letter to many of you. If you haven’t had a chance to respond yet, there’s no better time than now! Your donation greatly helps support the work your Jefferson County Democratic Committee does on behalf of all Democrats in the County. Please send a check today or click on the ActBlue link below to make a one-time donation, or … better still, a recurring monthly donation, in any amount that you can afford. Thank you!
Jefferson County Democratic Committee
c/o Jane Halin, Treasurer
PO Box 266
Punxsutawney, PA 15767
or use ActBlue I just gave to Jefferson County Democratic Committee (PA)!
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