From: Bob Pitman
Columbus
It seems reasonable to me that any candidate for office should be willing to engage in joint appearances with his/her opponents.
That has not been the case for some Republicans, in this case our District 59 state Representative Ryan Lauer.
Could this be because he wants to conceal the fact that many of his positions are extreme?
Take the issue of choice for example.
Ryan Lauer is on record as opposing abortion in any case, with no exceptions, even if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or in order to save the life of the mother.
His opponent Ross Thomas believes that women have the right to control their own bodies, and that abortion should be a personal and private decision.
Ross Thomas also believes that Indiana voters should have the right to weigh in on this important issue, as has been the case in many other states.
Lauer, along with the super majority Republican legislature, has stopped any such referendum from happening, no doubt because every state that has allowed it, has preserved the right to abortion.
Lauer has, however, has supported intervening in the business of other states, for example, when he traveled to Arizona to “monitor” their result in the 2020 presidential election.
No doubt this was to try to support Donald Trump’s claim that he won the state. (That claim, along with 60 plus other similar ones, was rejected by the courts.)
I hope that District 59 voters will take a dim view of such hypocritical interference.
I hope they will also insist on joint forum/debates of elected officials and their opponents.
Editor’s note: This letter is paid political content. Political endorsement letters are published with a $25 fee. They may be submitted to [email protected]. Due to a Republic error, an earlier letter from this writer was republished last week.
