FUMO REQUESTS APOLOGY FROM GOP'S MELVIN

State Senator Vince Fumo has sent the following letter to Eileen Melvin, chair of the Republican State Committee:

May 18, 2005

Eileen Melvin, Chair
Republican State Committee
112 State Street
Harrisburg, PA 17101

Dear Ms. Melvin,

            On Monday, May 16, the Republican State Committee issued a news release in which you were quoted. The release inaccurately stated that voters in the First Ward of Philadelphia would be required to use a polling place that also contained my district office in yesterday’s primary election. The location to which you referred does not house any of my district offices.

            In the release, speaking of what you referred to as “the Democratic Machine in Philadelphia”, you were quoted saying this: “In many places, they have taken away the right to privacy in the voting booth, freedom from intimidation at the polls, and even the ability to vote in a safe, public place." Later in the release, a paragraph began by saying that “a number of other polling places make a mockery of electoral fairness” and then went on to mention me by name, claiming that a polling place was at my district office.

            The problem is that your news release makes a mockery of factual accuracy. I suppose like a good political foot soldier, you take your cues from the guy at the top, George W. Bush. It must be difficult to have much respect for the truth when the leader of your party says that Social Security will be “bankrupt” by mid-century; when he says that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; when he declares the war in Iraq over after six weeks of combat; when officials of his administration deliberately misrepresent scientific conclusions of an Environmental Protection Agency study on mercury emission (and many other scientific environmental studies;) when he wins a primary election by claiming U.S. Senator John McCain opposed breast cancer research; and when he engages in many other lies too numerous to mention here. I guess you are just a victim of what Ronald Reagan might have called “trickle down dishonesty.”   

            Still, it is a shame you have to resort to untruths in your typical and tiresome  Republican zeal to bash Philadelphia.  In most cases, I would be willing to let your credibility be your problem. When you lie about me in a public news release, however, I expect a public apology.

                                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                                    (signed) 

                                                                                    VINCENT J.  FUMO                                                                                            State Senator