Don鈥檛 be fooled by negative campaigning
Residents in the Pennsylvania 50th Legislative District (Greene, Fayette and Washington Counties) recently received a postcard mailer bashing Pam Snyder’s stands on education issues that is very misleading. Don’t be fooled by it.
This flier was distributed by the Commonwealth Leaders Fund-yet another political action committee (PAC) which provides a front name behind which monied political activists can donate and hide their “dark” money activities. None of the readily available information on this PAC reveals who is funding these efforts or where they are from. It was founded by Matt Brouillette, entrepreneur businessman turned Republican political operative involved in several such “foundations”.
This PAC is distributing a number of factually inaccurate or misleading mailers to voters in several Pennsylvania House Districts, attempting to trash incumbent Democrats they would like to see defeated.
The claim that Pam Snyder “Voted against fully funding our public schools” refers to PA House Bill 3837 of May, 2020. It was the Republican-offered omnibus budget bill to provide for appropriations for the entire executive, legislative and judicial branches and the state’s entire public debt, as well as funding schools. It was rife with many things for Pam Snyder, and many others, to rightfully vote against. A vote against this bill was not an effort to defund public schools, as the flier tries to lead you to believe. After many amendments, it eventually passed the House on May 26 and was approved by Governor Wolf.
“Blocked children from access to better schools” and “Opposed scholarships for low-income children” refer to Pam’s vote against a Republican-sponsored bill (HB 800) promoting charter and private schools-essentially siphoning public school monies off to fund those private, for-profit or ideological ventures. Voting against such would have been supportive of our public schools against these vultures. The bill first passed on a 111-85 vote, largely along party lines, on the May 7, 2019, to which the flier refers. It was vetoed by Governor Wolf on June 18, 2019.
Don’t get fooled by this kind of negative campaigning.
Thomas R. Moore
Waynesburg