Pennsylvania US Representative District 11
Description of office: The US Constitution requires that the House of Representatives be composed of Representatives from each state, elected in proportion to population. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives, with 17 Representatives allotted to Pennsylvania after the 2020 census. A US Representative must be at least 25 years old, have been a citizen of the United States for the past seven years, and be a resident of the state they seek to represent at the time of the election (though not necessarily the same district). The House of Representatives is responsible for introducing and voting on bills, resolutions and amendments, and for approving the budget. Representatives also serve on various policy committees. The House may send Articles of Impeachment of elected officials to the Senate and elects the President if there is a tie in the Electoral College.Term: 2 yearsSalary: $174,000Vote for ONE.
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Jim Atkinson
(Dem)
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Lloyd K. Smucker
(Rep)
What do you see as the most pressing issues facing the country, and how would you address them?
What changes, if any, would you support that would help Congress function more efficiently and effectively?
What legislation would you support to protect voting rights and safeguard access to free and fair elections?
How do you view the role of the US in responding to challenges facing the international community?
County
Lancaster
Occupation
Airline Pilot
Education
4-year degree
Qualifications
Sixty years of life experience
Most pressing right now is the influence of money in our politics. This is the mother of all other issues, because it corrupts our ability to develop good ideas and implement good solutions. Instead, we essentially put our politics out for auction and the results are quite distressing: our government is doling out favors to the richest among us, while adding another trillion dollars to the national debt every 100 days. It is not sustainable, it is wrong, and it needs to change.
It may sound radical, but simply limiting all lobbying to congressional committee hearings would have a huge effect. The First Amendment guarantees the right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances," but doesn't say that this "petitioning" can be done out of the public eye. Too much lobbying is intertwined with influential amounts of money nowadays, and it's the money, n. The end result is a government which makes no one happy except those with the money to influence it. When the objective of individual members of Congress is primarily to raise funds, they will concentrate on that objective. Only by placing a tourniquet on the flow of influence money can we hope for a return to "government by good ideas."
I would support any effective legislation presented which protects voting rights. Protecting voting rights and safeguarding access is essential to preserving our democracy.
We have to stand up for our values, not just our interests. We need to demonstrate, in our foreign policy, that we walk the walk on human rights and that we do not see international justice as a negotiable principle.
I stand very much in favor of defending Ukraine and helping it survive as a nation. I favor Israel's pursuit of eliminating Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but I would add that innocent Palestinian civilians should not be sacrificed in the process.
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