Hits and Misses
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has been a ubiquitous presence in headlines recently due to his pivotal role in negotiations over the budget reconciliation bill being negotiated in Washington, D.C. Manchin scuttled some of the expenditures in the bill that would have helped combat climate change, and that could well end up being to the detriment of the state he represents. The First Street Foundation, a nonprofit group, released data a few weeks ago that found West Virginia was the most flood-prone state in America, due to its topography and the impact of surface mining. And yet Manchin and most other leading political figures in the Mountain State are disinterested in dealing with climate change even as West Virginia is hit with more and more drenching rainstorms. Stephen Baldwin, a Democratic state senator, told The New York Times, “Nobody wants to talk about the real driving factor here, which is the climate.”
About 30 years ago, some folks in Toledo, Ohio, floated the idea of breaking away from the Buckeye State and joining Michigan, believing that the city would get more attention if it joined its northerly neighbors. It went nowhere, and the same result is likely for residents and lawmakers in three counties in the western part of Maryland who have beaten the drums about seceding from liberal, blue Maryland and joining West Virginia. Geographically and culturally, it might make some sense. But it’s more of a stunt than anything else, considering that Maryland’s solidly Democratic Legislature would need to sign off on it, as would Congress. The Baltimore Sun also noted that state funds account for 40% of the annual budgets in two of the three counties. Plus, a state’s political allegiances aren’t carved in granite, and for evidence of that, Marylanders need look no further than … West Virginia, once a deeply Democratic state and now solidly Republican. One day, Marylanders in those three counties might get leadership that they like.
Turnout in Tuesday’s off-year election is bound to be tiny, especially in comparison to the contest last year with Joe Biden and Donald Trump atop the ballot. But even though the presidency doesn’t hang in the balance, there are a host of important contests for voters across the region to consider, from spots on school boards and borough councils to state and local judge seats, elections inspectors and more. None of the people who hold these jobs dominate the news day after day, but they do important work. Citizens owe it to themselves and their communities to find out who the candidates are, make choices about who they believe will best represent their interests and beliefs, and vote accordingly. The greater the level of civic participation, the healthier our communities are.
If you have driven by Washington High School on Jefferson Avenue recently, you’ve surely seen the bus parked on the edge of the parking lot with the hard-to-miss sign draped on the side letting the world know the district is in the market for school bus drivers. They are not alone. School districts throughout the commonwealth need bus drivers, and the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf is hoping to get more of them on the road by expanding the hours of operation at 23 PennDOT locations so additional Pennsylvania residents can get the commercial driver’s licenses necessary to drive a school bus. It has also mailed a letter to the 376,000 Pennsylvanians who hold commercial driver’s licenses to see if they would be interested in joining the ranks of bus drivers. It would be a worthwhile pursuit for someone interested in helping their communities or schools. Ryan Dellinger, executive director of the Pennsylvania School Bus Association, pointed out that school bus drivers “are a critical part of the education system, and can set a tone for a child’s entire day at school.”