Harris Martin for State Representative

Name:	Harris Martin for State Representative
Office:	State Representative, 18th House District
Website:	martin.bensalemdemocrats.com

Background:

I am an environmental scientist with degrees in environmental science (BS Antioch College), plant science (MS Univ. Delaware), and soil science (Ph.D. Univ. Florida). I work in the private sector for an environmental consulting company. I work with wetlands, streams and rivers, contaminated sites, threatened and endangered species, and ecological risk assessments.

I have been a Democrat since I was 14 years old. In high school, I volunteered for the George McGovern campaign and went door to door for him in New Hampshire for the primary. I was elected president of my high school student council (Conestoga HS, Berwyn, PA) as the progressive candidate.

From 2001 to 2006, I was Chair of the Bensalem Democratic Organization. I stepped down to run for state representative. I am a Democratic Committeeperson in my local precinct. I have worked on numerous campaigns including those of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Ed Rendell for Governor, Peter Kostmayer for State Senate, Joe Hoeffel for US Senate, Ginny Schrader for Congress, Patrick Murphy for Congress, a state judicial campaign, two local state representative campaigns, two county campaigns (County Commissioner, County DA, county judge, county row offices), three local school board and township council campaigns, and I ran for school board myself in 2003. I lost by 160 votes out of 4,000 cast.

I am 51 years old. I am married with four grown children. I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and understand politics in the suburbs. While in college and graduate school, I experienced living in eight different states and voted in most of them.

I am patient, persistent, optimistic, and creative. I am a die-hard Democrat. I believe in the traditional Democratic Party values of advancing the economic interests of the poor, the working class, and the middle class. I believe in freedom and justice for everyone.

Goals:

I am running to provide real representation in Harrisburg for the people of my district. I have the life experience, expertise on issues, and political acumen to do the job.

The incumbent is a Republican who votes in the state House as he is told by party leaders. After 12 years in office, he has been ineffective and has little to show for his time there.

I will use my grass-roots campaign to build up the Democratic Party in the district and in Bensalem Township. I have already recruited one new committeeperson and one new local election official and plan to recruit a lot more. I will get a lot of new voters registered and some Republicans and independents switched to Democrat. I have done some of this already and it is still early in the campaign.

I will use my campaign to help other Democratic candidates, including those for State Senate, US Congress, US Senate, and Governor.

Legislative reform:

I am supported by PACleanSweep, which is supporting 109 state legislative candidates (of both parties) who favor legislative reform. We opposed the midnight pay raise and unconstitutional un-vouchered expenses passed in 2005. We support more public access for the legislative process, with all bills being open to public comment for 10 days prior to the state House and Senate voting on them.

Once in office, I will align myself with Democrats and reform-minded Republicans in the Legislature to carry our the reform goals of PACleanSweep. I will support other clean and open government reform initiatives including:

Stronger open records laws,

Redistricting reform,

Strict lobbyist disclosure laws,

Eliminating "WAMs" (walking around money),

Cutting off funding for taxpayer funded incumbent reelection campaign TV ads, phone polls, newsletter mailings, and brochures that masquerade as public service announcements,

Eliminate "ghost voting" by legislators (party floor leaders allowed to vote for absent legislators),

Search the state statutes for outmoded and anachronistic laws that need to be abolished,

Make all roll call votes of both houses of the legislature available for public view on the internet,

Putting all state laws and regulations on the internet for public view.

Real Estate Tax Reductions:

Tax shifts are needed to reduce the reliance of public schools on real estate taxes for their funding. I favor shifting some real estate taxes to local wage taxes and some state taxes, especially for senior citizens. If the bill currently moving through the legislature (Pennsylvania Taxpayer Relief Act) passes and is signed into law by Governor Rendell, I will add more comment on this issue here.

Health Care and Health Insurance Reform:

I favor a universal single-payer health care delivery system. Our current system is broken, with outrageous health insurance premiums for individuals and employers and millions uninsured or underinsured. See my website for more details at www.martin.bensalemdemocrats.com.

Better State Funding of Education:

The state should fund unfunded state mandates such as special education. State funding of public schools should be brought back up to the 50 percent level where it was years ago. This can be accomplished by making the state income tax a graduated tax, with a higher tax rate on those earning more than $200,000 per year.

The Environment:

I will use my environmental expertise to push for stronger enforcement of existing state environmental laws. Pennsylvania is notorious for its lax enforcement of its environmental laws.

I will sponsor state legislation establishing a 50-foot wide legally protected buffer around all wetlands and on each side of all streams and rivers.

I will sponsor legislation to provide legal protection to sensitive limestone karst natural resources. I will support better and more scientific management of karst-lands and karst features. I will support efforts to implement best engineering practices for road building, construction, and storm water management on limestone karst.

I will support legislation and budget measures to clean up the mess from abandoned coal mines, acid mine drainage, and coal fly ash. I will support efforts by the state to promote clean coal burning technologies such as no-net-CO2 technologies that have been proven commercially viable by the US Department of Energy.

I will support expansion of wind-powered electricity generation with the proviso that wind power generators must work with bird and bat conservation agencies to reduce substantially, the deaths of birds and bats currently being caused by wind power turbines.

Roads:

Pennsylvania has some of the worst roads in the country. Polls by Truck Driver Magazine always rate PA roads in the bottom three states.

To fix this problem, we have to improve:

The road project priority selection process,

Highway contracting and contract management and oversight,

Traffic management during Road construction projects,

Road-building materials quality control.

Mass Transit:

I will support expansion of mass transit, including the installation of new rail lines connecting northeastern PA and the Lehigh Valley to North Jersey and New York City, expanding SEPTA rail lines all the way to Reading, and circum-urban rail lines to "put the wheel rims on the spokes" of the commuter rail systems of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

I will support establishment of dedicated funding sources for SEPTA and the other mass transit systems around the state.

Such funding must comply with our state constitution. An amendment to our state constitution may be required to create separate taxing authority for mass transit. However, gasoline and diesel tax revenues should be used strictly on roads. Mass transit must have a dedicated funding source other than liquid fuel taxes.

Civil Rights:

I will oppose any efforts to make it more difficult to vote or to disenfranchise any voters.

I will oppose legislation that has the effect of worsening discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, handicap, age, or gender-identity.

I will work with the House Black Caucus on various legislative initiatives.

Election Law Reform/Voting Integrity:

I support a requirement for use of voter-verified paper ballot voting technology. I support use of optical scanners.

Most of the electronic machines (\"dres\") now being adopted in counties in Pennsylvania do not meet these standards and are unacceptable for use in a democracy. Voting must be conducted in such a manor that real recounts can be conducted after close elections.

Issues:

Legislative Reform
Property Tax Reduction
Health Care and Health Insurance Reform

Grassroots Support:

I am going door to door meeting and talking to voters in my district. In a number of neighborhoods, the local Democratic Committeepeople will door knock with me. I know nearly every neighborhood in my district and have door knocked or lit dropped most of them in past campaigns.

We are recruiting local volunteers to help with lit drops, envelope stuffing, phone banks, gotv, and civic projects in the community. We already have over 600 local people in our volunteer list spreadsheet.

Most of my fundraising has been and will continue to be donations of $50 or less, mostly from people who live in the district.

Our own local Democratic Party, the Bensalem Democratic Organization, has our own MS Access voter database, our own bulk mail permit, our own local mail fulfillment house, our own website (www.bensalemdemocrats.com), our own local mass-email distribution system, our own local phone bank locations, our own local phone bank and gotv volunteers, and other resources that most local Democratic Committees don't have, and we developed all of this on our own.

DFA Values:

Look up "liberal" in the dictionary: Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House, NY.:

"Liberal: adj. 1) favorable to progress or reform, as in religious or political affairs. 2) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform. 3) of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies. 4) of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism. 5) favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by government protection of civil liberties. 6) favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression. 7) free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant. 8) open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc."

That describes my philosophy. This has nothing to do with the lies and distortions put forth by Republicans and conservatives.

I have been a member of the NAACP for a number of years. In 2005, I served as Chair of the Political Action Committee for the Bucks County PA Branch. We successfully lobbied to remove from a state senate bill, a provision that would have taken away the right to vote of former felons on parole or probation.

I believe in one-man-one-vote. Thus I support amending the US Constitution to provide for direct popular election of the President.

I believe in the right to privacy and individual liberties as enumerated in the US and Pennsylvania constitutions. Thus I am pro-choice, pro-equal rights for women and minorities, and oppose any restrictions of individual rights based on gender-identity. It might surprise you to learn that I am also pro-second amendment as any true liberal should be. Those who advocate government restrictions on constitutionally protected rights to bear arms (US and PA constitutions) are in fact conservatives, if I read the dictionary correctly.

I believe that the federal government should have a balanced budget like it did under Bill Clinton. George Bush's huge tax cuts for the wealthy were fiscally irresponsible and have harmed our country financially.