proposed laws

PA Bill Number: HB2109

Title: In terms and courses of study, providing for student mental health supports.

Description: In terms and courses of study, providing for student mental health supports. ...

Last Action: Referred to EDUCATION

Last Action Date: Mar 14, 2024

more >>

decrease font size   increase font size

District 102-Ostracized candidate Russ Diamond to Lebanon GOP: No, you should resign :: 08/12/2014

A Republican state House candidate asked by the Lebanon County Republican Executive Committee to drop out of his race defiantly said Monday that it is the committee members who should resign.

Russ Diamond, the Republican nominee for the 102nd House District seat, responded to the committee's request by saying he will not resign and is running to stop people like them and the "cronyism" they represent.

"I don't give up," Diamond said by phone Monday. "I earned this seat. The voters were gracious enough to make me the nominee."

Diamond said committee members should resign because they violated the group's bylaws when they issued a press release Friday announcing that they had voted to ask Diamond to withdraw. He said the bylaws forbid them from publicly opposing the party's candidate.

Committee chair Casey Long said he does not believe the committee violated its bylaws. Diamond's history, he said, is such that it is impossible for committee members to support his candidacy.

Diamond is running for the seat against Democrat Jake Long and independent candidate Robert McAteer.

. . . . .

But Diamond said Monday that the real issues are "control and power" and old grudges kept by committee members. Those grudges, he said, stem in part from his efforts through PA CleanSweep, a political reform group he founded in response to a controversial Legislative pay raise in 2005.

"They're just trying to go back to the bad old days of hand-picking candidates who kowtow to whatever they want done in Harrisburg..." Diamond said. "I'm sure in the next few months, they'll be trying to paint me as the meanest, dirtiest, lowdown scumbag to come down the pike since John Wilkes Booth."

In his letter to the committee, Diamond said he was "not surprised that the first public act of your regime is an appalling attempt to subvert the will of the voters and cast aside the principles of the Lebanon County Republican Committee."

http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/08/ostracized_candidate_russ_diam.html#incart_river