Senatorial Candidates Ready for Tuesday’s Election

by Jonathan Weaver

On Tuesday, three Indiana County men will compete for the 41st Senatorial District seat to represent both Armstrong and Indiana Counties.

In front of about 50 students and voters at West Shamokin Junior/Senior High School last week, Republican Incumbent Don White, of Indiana, and challengers Democrat Tony DeLoreto, of White Township, and USA Minutemen Candidate Stanley Buggey, of Homer Center, gave their views on several topics brainstormed by students – including the economy, rising heroin and opioid use and the agricultural community.

“I am running to try to put an end to the past 16 years of ineffectiveness,” DeLoreto said. “I’m running to let the voters of the 41st District a choice for the first time in 16 years.

“The last 16 years, the 41st State Senate District has seen a dramatic decline in jobs, a steady increase in unemployment, a horrific increase in heroin addiction, an alarming increase in college debt, a deplorable decrease in education investment and a despicable, corrupted Harrisburg that can’t put together a balanced budget.”

Buggey had a different inspiration for his candidacy and hopes to instill his Christian values.

“What triggered me to run for office was when a reassessment was done – a property tax in order to fund the school. I think that’s a poor choice to fund the school because it basically affects the board and middle-class significantly,” Buggey said. “I think Harrisburg needs to find other sources to fund schools.

We need a lot of corrective action on a lot of the issues we have in Harrisburg, and I know I would be an advocate for the people and speak for the people.”

To combat rising heroin and opioid use, Senator White, a member of the Rural Pennsylvania Task Force, suggested re-training medical doctors.

“We think they know everything – we have great faith in them. But, when it comes to opioids and the abuse thereof, they’re part of the problem. So are our pharmaceutical companies” Senator White said.

Buggey would closely-analyze government programs, including welfare.

“You need to get the jobs created so people have pride and dignity so they don’t look elsewhere to be happy. That’s a basic human emotion – happiness – and if you can’t get it in your family life, you’re going to seek it elsewhere. And that drug will give it to you,” Buggey said. “When you do that, its addictive, and becomes a tragedy and a disease.

I actually feel government has created a backloop with the welfare system that keeps enabling this. And they don’t want to stop it because they’ll lose votes.”

DeLoreto proposed working with and seeing how countries around the world are also combating the drug problem, and also looking at the issue instead as a mental health issue.

“The war on drugs has been a catastrophe – we have to look at it as a mental health issue,” DeLoreto said. “Other countries are in the same predicament we are and they’re using different avenues and different procedures to see what works best.”

Other issues discussed during the 80-minute debate include school safety, the state budget and graduation requirements.

All three candidates are veterans and would support legislation calling for term limits.

Election Day is Tuesday.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.