In other words, the GOP should keep its fingers off the FDR 10-cent piece.


Clay Township supervisor Jon Price, who narrowly lost a bid for a county commissioner nomination in the May primary, issued a statement last week protesting a bill in the U.S. House to replace Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the dime with Reagan.


The bill, introduced by Indiana Congressman Mark Souder, has among its 90 cosponsors our local representative, 16th District Republican Joe Pitts.


Pitts’ spokesman, Derek Karchner, said last week that the legislation – now in the House’s Committee on Financial Services – is straightforward in its aim “It is unclear how quickly something like this might move,” Karchner said. “It could be as early as the spring or not until the next Congress.”


The bill, HR3633, known as the “Ronald Reagan Dime Act,” describes Reagan as the “Freedom President” and proposes to add him to the dime “in honor of his work in restoring American greatness and bringing freedom to captive nations around the world.”


Price, however, objects to the notion of removing FDR, whom he described as his favorite president, from the dime. He’s urging Lancaster Countians who agree to contact Pitts and express their opposition to the swap. Or they can contact him at votejonp@ptd.net.


It was Roosevelt’s lifelong battle with polio, Price pointed out, that led to FDR’s founding of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, later known as the March of Dimes.


The legislation has enraged Democrats, for whom FDR is an icon. And a USA Today/CNN Gallup Poll earlier this month found 82 percent of respondents oppose replacing FDR with Reagan on the dime, while 16 percent favor the idea and 2 percent had no opinion. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.


A Democrat, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, has signed up 53 cosponsors for his bill keeping FDR’s portrait. “At this point, there is no way to tell what will happen,” Price said.


Price noted that when he ran for county commissioner earlier this year, “I ran as a New Deal Democrat. In fact, on my honeymoon, one of the places my wife and I went to was to visit his house at Hyde Park.” Well, it’s politically romantic, anyway.


“I define my ideological orientation with the New Deal – progressive on the environment, civil rights and labor, also committed to old-fashioned, traditional values of society,” said Price, whose political orientation is in his genes – his parents are Jean and the late J. Lorell Price. “Nothing against Reagan,” Jon Price said, “but he already has an aircraft carrier, the largest government building in Washington and the National Airport named after him. “FDR, as the founder of the March of Dimes, should remain on the dime.”


Adopting a compromise


Since politics is the art of the possible, state Rep. Katie True of the 41st District isn’t going to carp about some changes the Senate is making in a bill she sponsored to reform Pennsylvania adoption law.


The Senate Judiciary Committee moved True’s bill to the floor Monday after an amendment – from 20 to 30 days in which birth parents can revoke their consent to an adoption. True said she found out Dec. 5 that the committee was going to bring up House Bill 1423. The change from 20 to 30 days was apparently recommended by Gov. Ed Rendell’s policy office and the state Department of Welfare. The House passed the bill, 189-8, in June.


“I could have chosen to fight about it,” she said, “but that would not have gotten us anywhere.”


Now, it’s possible the legislation will be enacted by the end of the year. If the Senate approves the bill, it returns to the House, and if the House OKs the changes, the bill goes to Rendell for his signature.

Thirty days is better than none, after all.


State adoption law now only provides that consent may be revoked prior to the time a judge enters a decree of adoption or a decree terminating parental rights. With no clearly defined time frame, the finalization of an adoption varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.


“Adopting a baby in Pennsylvania should not be a painstaking ordeal where adoptive parents must wait and wonder if the child they have accepted as their own may be taken away from them after the birth parent changes her or his mind,” True said in a statement after the Senate committee vote.


The Republican has some personal experience with the situation. Her son Pete and his wife recently adopted a baby, Owen, in Pennsylvania, “but this child will not be officially theirs for several months,” True noted. “This waiting is unreasonable and unnecessary.”


More delegation doings


State Rep. Gib C. Armstrong will host a Christmas open house for his 100th District constituents from 3 to 7 p.m. Thursday at his office, 215 E. State St., Quarryville. Light refreshments and coffee will be served, and Armstrong and his staff will be available to answer questions. For information, call the office, 786-4551.


And state Rep. Roy Baldwin, R-97th District, reminds volunteer fire and ambulance companies that they have only until Dec. 31 to apply for the state’s new $25 million grant program. Applications are available on the Web at www.osfc.state.pa.us. Fire companies can receive grants of $2,500 to $15,000, while ambulance companies are eligible for grants from $2,500 to $10,000. Companies that haven’t received a packet of information can contact Baldwin’s district office, 2720 Lititz Pike, at 569-5855.


Another screening


Republican committee members in the 99th state House district will meet to interview candidates for endorsement at 7 p.m. Jan. 15 at the Elanco Library in New Holland. The snow date (let’s hope not!) is Jan. 19.


Meanwhile, the Elanco GOP committee seat in Earl Township’s New Holland precinct might have changed hands, but not approach. Chuck Trupe, who resigned from the committee in October so he could support the county commissioner campaign of Constitution Party nominee Jim Clymer, has been replaced by Hal Landis – a friend of Trupe’s.


Political potpourri


Penn professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an expert on political ads, and former CNN newsman Brooks Jackson are collaborating on what they call “the real no-spin zone” with FactCheck.org, a Web site designed to hold politicians accountable for their statements. The site, at www.factcheck.org, is a free resources with links to original documents and reports. It’s sponsored by Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.


lCongressman Pat Toomey will be in Pittsburgh on Monday to pick up the endorsement of the Politically Active Physicians Association in his Republican primary fight for the Senate seat now held by veteran Arlen Specter. The 5,000-member doctors’ organization reportedly will back Toomey for his support of medical malpractice reform.


Helen Colwell Adams is an editor of the Sunday News Perspective section. E-mail her at hcolwell@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-4962.<.500 blog comments powered by Disqus