Governor Shapiro gave his first speech recently. He covered numerous areas that are very important to Pennsylvanians, especially vowing to fix the disparity between poor and wealthy school districts. He wants to work across the aisle and shortly after his huge election victory he hired qualified Republicans for his cabinet. He also wants to make it easier for business’s to set up shop. He proposed incentives for teachers, police officers and nurses to address the shortages. Give him time. Real progress means working together, building relationships with inclusion and equality. He has shown to be a real leader.

Contrast that with Governor DeSantis in Florida who is self absorbed, ducks questions by intimidating the press, is a divider, is attacking education and where millions of school books are being vetted, which is highly subjective. Teachers are quitting over his policies. PEN America declared his vague laws have schools “under a cloud of fear.” Ask snow bird teachers who work part time and say Florida students are lacking even basic math skills.

Florida loves its guns, has a “stand your ground” law and has a new bill to allow people to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. I mean really, how many kids have been killed by drag queens? He is even imposing his own rules on businesses. His latest autocratic move is to ban abortion after 6 weeks. Gerrymandering has turned all power over to the Republican legislature, so need I say more.

His fascist tactics are not going to cut it in Pennsylvania. We have many clones of General McAuliffe and we/they will say “Nuts” to his autocratic demands/policies.

Debra Becker

Effort