Committee meetings a battle worth fighting

Serving as minority chairman of a committee can be a tough job. Simply being in the minority means it takes more work to get your side heard. But that job grows even more difficult when your majority counterpart is determined to force his ultraconservative agenda down your throat and won’t listen to counter arguments as the Republican Chairman Rep. Daryl Metcalfe has attempted to do time and time again.

I believe it is my job to defend the values of the loyal opposition and to voice them. It is no secret that Mr. Metcalfe and I are polar opposites in our political beliefs, but there is no reason why differences cannot be discussed in a rational manner. Instead the chairman regularly threatens me when I voice Democratic values. He does not want to hear any criticism of his extreme right-wing ideology. But I refuse to be stifled. The majority may be able to outvote me, but it cannot outshout me. It is both my job under Pennsylvania’s Constitution and my First Amendment right to speak for those I represent, and I will not be silenced.

If I could choose, I would be discussing public policy in a calm and collegial atmosphere rather than engaging in shouting matches, but it was made worthwhile by an email from a young woman. She had been shadowing me as part of a trip with a nonprofit and witnessed my attempts to advance logical arguments at a committee meeting. She later wrote me that she had been thinking about what she had seen, and she was resolved to stick up more for herself when she knew she was in the right.  

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