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Sunday, May 30, 2010

A Love Letter to Sam Rohrer

In case you missed it last week, the editorial board of the Reading Eagle (a very left-leaning newspaper) penned a love letter to one of the most conservative members of the Pennsylvania Legislature, Sam Rohrer, who is ending an 18-year career in the state House.

"Agree with him or not, he served with honor and dignity," the newspaper says of Rohrer, who received 31 percent of the Republican vote in the May 18 primary but lost the GOP nomination for governor to Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett.

From the editorial:
Whether you agreed with Rohrer or not, you always understood exactly where he stood. There was no political double-talk in his public statements, there was no hedging his bet on how he would vote, there was no need to ask GOP leadership where he should stand on a particular issue. He made up his own mind based on his core beliefs, which never wavered.

Rohrer wasn't always successful translating his beliefs from legislation into laws, but he never stopped trying. His signature piece of legislation, which never gained enough support to get it through the Legislature, was his bid to replace the onerous real estate levy with an expanded sales tax. The concept earned him a lot of support in Berks County and a few of the neighboring counties, but it never gained traction in many other parts of the commonwealth, especially west of the Susquehanna River. Despite attempts to tweak the measure, it never came close to becoming law.
The newspaper also speculates Rohrer may challenge longtime Democratic state Sen. Mike O'Pake in 2012.

Read the full editorial at the link below:

Rohrer always remained true to his core principles

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Eagle speaks nice of him, now that he lost! If they thought that well of him, they should have endorsed him.