PA Senate Dist. 40--VOTE TODAY

[I'm armed]

Just a reminder for anyone else living in PA Senate District 40: There's a special election being held today to fill the seat Jane Orie held.

I got an email from FOAC. They're asking us to support Randy Vulakovich.

My husband and I will be going to vote today after he gets home from work.



off topic: When I try accessing FOAC's website, I'm getting page with a message that "Zend Optimizer not installed" at the top . Could someone else please check and see if they get that coming up, too? http://www.foac-pac.org/

[WhiteFeather]

“If you live in former state Senator Jane Orie’s District, your gun rights depend upon you and your friends voting for

THE only pro-gun rights candidate ‘Randy Vulakovich’

in the special election onTuesday August 7.”

See FOAC attachment

Randy Vulakovich has pledged to decide issues based on fact not emotion.

He is a strong supporter of your ‘right to bear arms’ AND your ‘right to self-defense and to defend your family’.

Randy believes in holding criminals responsible for their crimes and NOT using their actions to take away ‘freedoms’ from law-abiding citizens.

His opponent has refused to answer our questionnaire OR to even return calls.

Randy’s Democratic opponent ‘refuses’ to state her views on the individual citizen’s right to bear arms and has been evasive in public on this issue

See FOAC attachment

[WhiteFeather]

In case you on the fence and haven't voted yet in this special race to fill the remaining time and why your vote counts

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/...at-647587/?p=0

Vote set Tuesday to fill Jane Orie's state Senate seat

GOP Rep. Vulakovich faces Democrat Brown to replace convicted Republican


Voters north of Pittsburgh finally turn the page on former state Sen. Jane Orie Tuesday in a special election pitting a three-term state representative from Shaler against a health care consultant from McCandless.

Ms. Orie took office in mid-2001 and served the 40th Senate district for 11 years before a jury ruled in March that she improperly used her state office for political work. She resigned in May, triggering the special race to fill the seat through 2014.

Democrat Sharon Brown, 59, last ran in an unsuccessful attempt to oust state Rep. Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, in 2010. The GOP candidate is state Rep. Randy Vulakovich, 62, of Shaler, a former township policeman who replaced another convicted state legislator, Jeff Habay, in the House in 2007.

The candidates adhere to party orthodoxy on most issues: Mr. Vulakovich favors the state's voter ID rules and fully privatizing liquor stores, is wary of gun control efforts and against abortion. Ms. Brown has the opposite view on all those issues.

"There has been no single case of voter fraud that has been identified," Ms. Brown said of the bill Mr. Vulakovich joined his GOP colleagues in approving this year, saying it would largely hurt women, low-income and senior voters. Of fraud, Mr. Vulakovich said, "I'm an old cop. There's a lot of things that happen that we never find out that happened, that we know goes on all the time," though he concedes he didn't investigate an election fraud case in 27 years in law enforcement.

Mr. Vulakovich opposes efforts -- supported by many police chiefs -- to require the reporting of lost or stolen guns and said existing gun-tracking laws are sufficient. "All judges need to do is enforce them. We have plenty of laws on the books," he said. Ms. Brown says, "There definitely has to be some kind of restriction, or else we'll have another example of Aurora," referring to the fatal movie theater shootings last month in Colorado.

Ms. Brown said she worried how privatizing state-run liquor stores would affect employees -- which is a common theme among Democrats with ties to organized labor -- while Mr. Vulakovich said he would consider pension changes to protect employees close to retirement, using funds from the sale of store leases.

Ms. Brown is vague on transit and transportation infrastructure funding, saying she would support increased vehicle registration fees (proposed by a gubernatorial task force a year ago) but other revenues "need to be looked at." Her opponent also said he could support such fee increases, and had a four-point plan for funding public transit that considers transportation in rural counties, union concessions and increased funding from Allegheny County government.

In the wake of the Orie trial, Mr. Vulakovich has made much of his support of government reform efforts, embodied in his refusal to take per-diems or a state-owned car, which is repeated in his TV spots and mailers. Democrats note he did take some per-diems upon first taking office in 2007 and used state cars through 2008. "The issue I think is the advertising," said Ms. Brown. "Things were not taken when indeed they were." Ms. Brown said she did not know if she would accept per-diems or a state car herself.

Mr. Vulakovich said he had to cut through long-standing Harrisburg red tape to cut off the perks. "If somebody wants to take cheap shots because of two months here and then taking a car for two years, let them do it," he responds. "People are much more smarter than that and literally it just offends me that they try to cheapen something."

Due to the short time-frame between Ms. Orie's resignation and the Aug. 7 special election, the two candidates were picked by officials from their respective political parties rather than through primary battles. Before running for the Senate seat, Mr. Vulakovich was largely known for a bill allowing the state to intervene in the UPMC-Highmark contract dispute, and for several weeks through the spring former U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart of Bradford Woods was considered the frontrunner for the GOP nod. Mr. Vulakovich's name surfaced a week before the party's June 16 vote, with a push from his ally, Mr. Turzai.

He initially had "no ambition" to join the Senate, he said, but "here was a whole lot of people locally and up in Harrisburg who approached me and said that position would be a good position for me to be in. ... The thing that pushed me over was you can probably get more done being one of 50 than you can being one of 203," he said, referring to the number of legislators in each chamber.

Ms. Brown's experience was similar. Two days before Democratic officials in Allegheny and Butler counties were due to tap a candidate, Ms. Orie's 2010 opponent, Dan DeMarco of Ross, announced he would not run. "I was asked to [run]," Ms. Brown said. "After talking to a number of [party] individuals we decided this would be the right decision to make."

The district comprises Hampton, Marshall, McCandless, Pine, Richland, Ross, Shaler, West Deer, Bradford Woods, Etna, Franklin Park and West View in Allegheny County, plus Adams, Buffalo, Clinton, Connoquenessing, Cranberry, Forward, Jackson, Middlesex, Penn, Callery, Evans City, Harmony, Mars, Seven Fields, Valencia and Zelienople in Butler County.

The state's new voter ID requirements will not be used during Tuesday's balloting as they do not take effect until mid-September.

[twency]

off topic: When I try accessing FOAC's website, I'm getting page with a message that "Zend Optimizer not installed" at the top . Could someone else please check and see if they get that coming up, too? http://www.foac-pac.org/

The page loads normally for me.

[I'm armed]

The page loads normally for me.

Thanks. It's working for me now, too.

[I'm armed]

In case you on the fence and haven't voted yet in this special race to fill the remaining time and why your vote counts

I don't think there was much of a turn out. At 6:30 this evening, my husband and I were #189 and #190 at our polling place. The lady working there said there were over 3,000 eligible voters for our precinct. I think that's sad.

[scruff]

I don't think there was much of a turn out. At 6:30 this evening, my husband and I were #189 and #190 at our polling place. The lady working there said there were over 3,000 eligible voters for our precinct. I think that's sad.

Look at the bright side - your vote counted a lot more in this election than usual. I only found out about this last night. Voted at 7:10 this morning (the place was deserted), and then told 7 friends, family & co-workers about it, hope they all made it in to vote too.

[Just1more]

It was a slow almost but not quite steady turnout at our location today as I work as a clerk there. Still pretty poor - around 170 total. Disappointing as I never see my neighbors voting...any of them !!

[Deleted]

Randy won... He's a good guy. I worked with him on occasion for a number of years before he retired. He will do a good job for the community.

http://northhills.patch.com/articles...or-orie-s-seat

[WhiteFeather]

Allowances for jumping up on a stump for a moment explain why lots of gun owners are all bark and very little bite as compared to their actual numbers.

When you volunteer to go walking for a candidates as FOAC volunteers often do.

You get handed a registered voters list, sometime you go on an long street or block and only have to stop at 3-5 homes to stop at, as they are the only ones that express their voices. When it’s a Sat in archery or small game season, you see all the people coming or going hunting and not one person in their household has even bother to registered to vote.

There was a Republican PA governor while in office in the mid 1990’s and signed more anti-gun legislation in law with a republican majority house & senate (so much for that myth that republicans are more pro-gun)

That R governor said something that was really disturbing mostly because it was true............. paraphrasing here

WHY SHOULD I LISTEN TO SPORTMEN’S OR GUN OWNERS, MOST ARE NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE AND EVEN LESS BOTHER TO VOTE!.

Then when you go into a gun club that has 400 to 800 people as members you will find a very small amount that are registered to vote.

So is it any great surprise that many seasoned politicians have no fear of gun owners especially in the cities?

Same thing occurs at a gun show someone will go on a rant about politicians for 10 minutes… Then you will find out they don’t even know their who their local state Rep name, what district they resided in or nothing, and once again not registered to vote……Let alone what pending pro or anti-gun laws are filled in HBG let alone what is happening at the federal level.

Do you see a problem here?


Then people get mad when lots of people elected to office stomp their rights , why shouldn’t they keep on doing it, IF they face no consequences from the gun owning voters come election day?

support is a two way street

Rant ~ OFF ~ positive back on

Randy won... He's a good guy. I worked with him on occasion for a number of years before he retired. He will do a good job for the community.

http://northhills.patch.com/articles...or-orie-s-seat

Yes Randy is a good guy and very pro gun with actions and votes casted, a very good replacement for gun owners all over PA

SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL THAT VOTED, you helped hold a line in the PA senate