Lighten Up—and Keep Fighting—with Babette Josephs in the 182nd

I had my say about the 182^nd State House race a few weeks so ago and hadn’t planned on writing anything else. But the recent controversy over a mailer sent out by the Josephs campaign—and even more a piece written in response to it by Tom Ferrick—led me to think a bit more about what we progressives should want in a Democratic State Representative at this point in our history.

There really isn’t much to say about the controversy over the flier except that everyone ought to lighten up. The Sims camp says that it is unfair because it accuses Brian of holding right wing views he does not hold. But anyone familiar with the issues, or rather non-issues, of the campaign, and who has any sense of humor at all would recognize that the flier is put forward tongue in cheek.

Everyone knows that there are no real issue differences between Babette and Brian. The flier is meant to criticize Brian’s claim that he could be a more “effective” legislator than Babette because he would build “work across the aisle” and “collaborate” with Republicans. Babette’s flier points out that the idea of building cross-party coalitions with the right wing Republicans is either ridiculous or dangerous.

It is ridiculous if you notice that Republicans, with an overwhelming advantage in both Houses of the General Assembly and no need for Democratic votes to pass anything, have no motivation to compromise with Democrats to enact terrible legislation, including bills that drastically cutting education at all levels, Medicaid and other health care programs, and other social services while at the same time cutting taxes for the very rich and corporations.

And it could be dangerous if you recognize that to get something you have to give something. What kinds of deals should Babette make? Suppose she wanted to get more funding for public transit—which Babette has supported for many years. What should she do to get it? Give Republicans some cover for their support of trans-vaginal ultrasounds for women who want to get an abortion?

At this point in the debate, enter Tom Ferrick stage center. Like most great reporters who become columnists, Tom has drunk deeply from the well of ancient wisdom that says the truth is somewhere in the middle. As a good Aristotelian myself, I share that perspective much of the time. I used to joke with Tom’s former colleague Chris Satullo that we were the only two “radical centrists” in SEPA. But read Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics closely and you will see that he says there are times when one attains moderation by aiming towards one extreme or another.

That’s more or less where we are now. The Republicans in Harrisburg and Washington have gone off the deep end. They are pushing for legislation that enacts a radical right wing agenda on both economic and sexual issues. Moderate Republicans in both cities are utterly distressed. (There is a Republican State House leader on transportation issues who would love to draft a compromise bill that funds both roads and public transit with a small gas tax increase. He can find Democrats but not enough Republicans to support this idea.)

We are politically in this country where we were in 1860, 1896, and 1936. Our parties have embraced competing ideologies and one has moved far from the old center. In these moments, there is no solution except the victory of one side or another. And hopefully, the victory will come without civil war.

That doesn’t mean that our side should move to the left. It does mean we need to stay where we are and win elections by mobilizing people around the slightly left of center policies we have supported in Pennsylvania and the nation as a whole. And that means we should not seek compromise and moderation. Rather, we need to show moderates and centrists, with reason and passion, just how awful are the consequences of continued right wing Republican rule.

So, no Tom, we don’t need “effective” legislators right now. (And, by the way, passing bills with your name on them is not how we political scientists measure “effectiveness.”) We need people who are going to stand up and tell the truth about politics in Harrisburg again and again so as to secure the support of the people in the middle.

I love meeting Babette on the streets of her district, with her backpack full of signs and lit. But I wish that the woman who many people think is too old for the job were out in Delaware, Bucks and Montgomery counties, telling other old women and men—and middle aged and young ones, too—what’s going on in Harrisburg and why they need to rise up against it. 

That’s what a State Representative in the 182nd district (and in Mark Cohen’s 202nd district, too) ought to be doing right now. And I can’t think of anyone whose lifetime of work—and her age and gender—make them better suited to this task than Babette Josephs.