Senator Eichelberger

Off on vacation

Jason High — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:38:36 +0000

I’m off for vacation this afternoon after a long night at the office catching up. I’ll check in tomorrow with a report.

- John

I would have more respect for them if…

Jason High — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:52:50 +0000

I am going to Arizona tomorrow for a reunion and have tried to get caught up on work before I go. This has been tough for me to do this week and makes for a very late night tonight. The stories are flying around the state about the Bonusgate investigation and a possible special session on ethics. People are getting more information about this situation and are getting more vocal. Some of the conservative legislators and some who would like to call themselves conservative legislators are now weighing in on things. Everyone wants to be a reformer and everyone is outraged about what has happened. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. Now there are some real good guys in the legislature but the wanna bes are part of the problem. They go along with the system until the system looks bad and then they pile on. I would have more respect for them if they weren’t so disingenuous.

- John

Lessons should be learned and laws passed

Jason High — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:36:32 +0000

Among other things today, I visited the Standing Stone Senior Center in Huntingdon Borough. It was their annual meeting and I was asked to say a few words. They asked me to speak about the budget and the Bonusgate scandal. I have been hearing more and more about the scandal from people who are shocked and very, very upset. This situation could turn into another pay-raise like scenario for the legislature. The corruption is so foreign to at least the folks around here. They can’t fathom the things that were done. I think that even the media and my fellow legislators do not understand how different the Harrisburg mentality is from the average Pennsylvanian’s. Just because things have been done a certain way for so long, it has become almost acceptable, even to the people that would never do those things themselves. I told the group today that the General Assembly will survive this mess but hopefully the crooked people within the legislature will not. And that lessons should be learned and laws passed to make things better for the future. That’s the best and rosiest outcome I can imagine.

- John

Let’s do it

Jason High — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:15:16 +0000

Evidently, my news release the other day asking for my Bonus Ban bill to get through the House has stirred up quite the controversy. The Chair of the House State Government Committee has been getting questioned from the media and the Senate Republican leadership turned up the heat today with a letter to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese asking about my bill and six others that are tied up in the House, mostly in the State Government Committee. I also sent a letter to the Committee Chairwoman today and one to the House Majority Leader asking for movement on my bill. I don’t think that the people of Pennsylvania want excuses about why this bill hasn’t moved, they want us to reform our corrupt system and protect the tax payers from any more abuse. This bill, and several others, do just that. On top of this news, there will be a press conference at the capitol tomorrow asking for a Special Session of the legislature on ethics. This is another opportunity for the people of this state to get involved and cry out for something to be done. They were heard loudly and clearly after the pay raise debacle, this is another chance to make things happen. Let’s do it!

- John

Let’s not blow it

Jason High — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:18:58 +0000

I attended and spoke at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the “Sheetz Brothers Kitchen” this morning in Claysburg, Blair County. This new state of the art facility encompasses 140,000 square feet and cost about 40 to 45 million dollars to build and outfit. Sheetz is going to do their own food production and shipping and roll out a new line of MTGo products. These are salads and sandwiches that are pre-made, never older than 24 hours, and ready to grab and go. This is an alternative to the MTO products that you custom order and wait for at the store. I had an interesting tour of the new building and got to sample some of the baked goods and sandwiches and I liked what I had. I saw today that Senator Jeff Picolla is calling for a special session on ethics. This is a tremendous idea. Much of the reform legislation that has not gotten through the process as well as other important ideas for change could be spotlighted in this special session. My experience has been that unless we do something like this, it will take too long to make needed reforms. In fact, as the clock is ticking, the public and the media lose their focus on these issues and move on to other things. Meanwhile, the people who abuse the system get more entrenched, more tax money is wasted and nothing changes. This is another opportunity to clean up the culture of corruption in Harrisburg, let’s not blow it.

- John