Editorial for March 9, 2006

Make it a real victory

OK, couch potatoes, how many of you know there’s an election next Tuesday?

If you’re like most people, unless you saw Page 6 of today’s Northeast Times, you have no clue that a slice of the electorate in the geographic heart of Northeast Philly will have an opportunity to make their voices heard next week.

Voters in the 174th Legislative District — Rhawnhurst, Bell’s Corner, Oxford Circle — will go to the polls in a special election to pick a successor to longtime state Rep. Alan Butkovitz, who resigned to become city controller in January.

The special election is a colossal waste of money, coming just two months before the regularly scheduled primary. State House Speaker John Perzel could have saved taxpayers a bundle by scheduling it to coincide with the May 16 primary. Be that as it may, however, the election is set, and voters in the 174th can give fair warning to Perzel and his colleagues in the state House of Representatives and Senate who voted for their illegal pay raise last summer: You’re in big trouble and you’re going to pay the price in the primary and/or general elections.

A great way to send that message is by voting in record numbers next week. If Perzel and his ilk see a massive turnout in the 174th district — folks, that need not be a pipe dream; you can make it a reality — they might just see it as a bad omen. The rest will be up to voters throughout the Keystone State later this year.

If residents of the 174th district vote in huge numbers for Democrat John Sabatina Jr. and/or Green Party candidate Traci Confer (Republican candidate Charles R. Ebsworth Sr. didn’t bother to call our political reporter back for an interview, so may his own vote be the only one he gets), that can be a delicious preview of what’s in store for the pay-raise bandits. And come November, we hope an angry and energized electorate will vote in huge numbers to dump all of the clowns that voted for the pay raise.

Let the revolution begin. ••

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