Hits and misses
Mike Jones
MISS: There are plenty of crimes out there for police to investigate and prosecutors to prosecute, and removing a $7 political sign from alongside a road should not be one of them. Nevertheless, police in Centerville filed a misdemeanor theft charge in November against Bob Sabot, a North Franklin supervisor, for taking down a political sign for Laura Hough, Washington County’s incumbent Republican prothonotary. It turns out Hough defeated Sabot’s wife, Democrat Sandy Sabot, in that month’s election. Hough happened to be watching – and recording – Sabot as he removed the signs, and when Hough confronted Sabot, he handed her the sign. That should have been the end of it, and it appears that Sabot was doing other countywide candidates a favor by taking down their signs. Instead, a charge was brought, the state attorney general’s office deployed a couple of prosecutors, but the whole thing was dropped Wednesday before what would have been Sabot’s preliminary hearing. Why did it even get as far as it did? It wasted the time of law enforcement, wasted taxpayer dollars and looked like an act of extraordinary pettiness.
HIT: When all the backward glances at 2023 were published over the last week or so, they all tended toward the grim, and not without good reason – there was war in Gaza, a continuing conflict in the Ukraine, mass shootings and political instability at home. But not everything was terrible in 2023, and that fact has been borne out by statistics released by the FBI in the waning hours of the old year that showed overall crime rates are down in the United States. While still higher than before the pandemic, the murder rate is falling and so are rates of crime in other categories the bureau tracks. In fact, Detroit saw fewer homicides last year than in any year since 1966. It’s believed that life returning to relative normalcy after the disruptions of COVID-19 is the reason for the dropping rates of murder and other offenses. Jeff Asher, a crime analyst, told The New York Times, “Murder didn’t go up because of things that happened in individual neighborhoods or individual streets. It went up because of these big national factors, and I think the big national factors are probably driving it down.”
HIT: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine deserves kudos for bucking his party and taking a stand against the demagogy that has surrounded transgender people, particularly children and teens. Last week, DeWine vetoed a bill that would have prohibited gender-affirming care for minors. The Republican governor said he listened to voices on all sides of the debate, but finally sided with parents and medical professionals who say such treatment has been life-saving. DeWine explained, “Ultimately, these tough, tough decisions should not be made by the government. They should not be made by the state of Ohio. They should be made by the people who love these kids the most, and that’s the parents. The parents who have raised that child, the parents who have seen that child go through agony, the parents who worry about that child every single day of their life.” If that’s not standing up for parental rights, then what is?
MISS: As 2024 dawned, 22 states raised their minimum wages, allowing about 10 million workers to get a boost in their paychecks. Alas, Pennsylvania was not one of them. In fact, the commonwealth has not raised its minimum wage of $7.25 since July 2009, when Barack Obama was new to the White House and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” was fresh in movie theaters. Claire Kovach, a senior research analyst with the Keystone Research Center, pointed out this week on the Pennsylvania Capital-Star site that all of Pennsylvania’s neighbors have a higher minimum wage, with Ohio’s at $10.45, Maryland’s at $14, and New York and New Jersey at $15. Granted, the cost of living is higher in New Jersey and New York, but Pennsylvania needs to raise its minimum wage so its workers can keep up with inflation and it can be competitive with neighboring states in attracting workers.