City looks at helping families in flood area
Overbrook residents may get buyouts
On June 14, 2017, Jeanne Sharpe received a frantic phone call from her grandson.
“He said ‘Grandma, I have bad news, all your little houses are floating, we’re getting flooded!’ I was crying, saying ‘Don’t worry about the miniature houses, save my house!’ ” she recalls.
The creek behind her home on Provost Road had burst its banks, wrecking the 71-year-old’s miniature railroad village on her covered backyard deck and ruining her Jeep.
Two doors down, Betty Booth, 69, spent several scary minutes waiting for emergency crews to rescue her disabled daughter after rising water stopped just short of the family’s first floor. She sustained about $30,000 in property damage, she said.
Two summers later, the two homeowners and their neighbors are hearing of a city proposal — that has the mayor’s support — to buy out roughly two dozen properties along the close-knit, but floodprone street just inside the city border in Overbrook.
The row of 1920s-era homes line one side of the street that turns off Saw Mill Run Boulevard, less than a half mile from the Library Road
and giving speeches. It’s an opportunity to advance pet issues that matter to their district or get a reading on how members feel about big issues before returning for another legislative session.
The social media platforms continue to churn out statements and take stances. Some lawmakers take international trips to learn more about global issues.
“Sometimes, there’s this sense that being on recess is like being on vacation for members, which is decidedly not true,” said Molly Reynolds, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “If you look at the kinds of schedules they keep when they’re in their districts — it can be punishing just like when they’re in Washington.
“When we think about what the roles and responsibilities of a member of Congress are,” she added, “a lot of that is about representing the people who sent you to Washington. So it’s important to check in with that, in addition with doing the legislative work.”
In Western Pennsylvania, lawmakers usually have scheduled events and impromptu appearances and spend time with their families, aides said.
Last week, Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, met with local officials to discuss flooding issues in the West End and held a town hall on climate change at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum in Oakland.
Mr. Doyle’s Twitter account has been active in protesting the Trump administration’s proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act and its rollback of some LGBTQ workplace protections — while also congratulating a South Park graduate for pitching his first game in the big leagues.
Conor Lamb, D-Mt. Lebanon, has town halls on the schedule for Tuesday in Hampton and Aug. 28 in Green Tree.
Mr. Lamb, who was swept into office last year as a moderate Democrat, has used the break to hold events with Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, RBucks, meeting students and veterans in Bucks and Montgomery counties. Mr. Fitzpatrick plans to visit the western part of the state later this month.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., has at least 18 events on his agenda spanning more than a dozen counties that touch every corner of the state, according to a schedule provided by his office.
Mr. Casey is dropping by union halls and children’s centers, focusing on health care issues and reaffirming “his commitment to protecting organized labor and call out the threat to those protections that the current administration poses.”
National tragedies can interrupt work in the districts. Three mass shootings during the first week of the recess spurred some lawmakers to call for Congress to come back to Washington.
On Tuesday, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the House Majority Leader, stood on the steps of the Capitol and demanded Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, RKy., reconvene the Senate — a move Mr. McConnell has refused to do. House Democrats passed a background check bill in February that has been sitting in the Senate ever since.
Mr. Hoyer added that the House Judiciary Committee would come back from recess early to put forth more gun legislation.
“I’ve been in politics for a long time,” Mr. Hoyer said. “It takes no courage to put on the Senate floor a bill that is supported by 90 percent of America. What takes courage is to look a special-interest group in the eye and say enough is enough, it’s time to act.”
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., has spoken with President Donald Trump on his more limited version of a background checks law, proposed with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. Mr. Toomey’s staff attended a meeting with White House officials in recent days to discuss the proposal.
Ms. Reynolds, who studies Congressional rules and procedure, said lawmakers can be swayed on big issues during the August recess.
In 2009, she recalled, the Obama administration and Senate Democrats began working on health care legislation with Republicans. But people packed town halls in Republican districts over “death panels” and the prospect of the government taking away health care, swaying Republicans against the plan, Ms. Reynolds said.
“If there was any real hope of getting a bipartisan measure worked on, what happened when some of those Republican senators went back to their states may have contributed to shifting that,” she said. (The Affordable Care Act was approved along party lines in 2010.)
Big issues that lie ahead for Congress in September include legislation to stem the tide of gun violence; passing bills to fund government agencies; considering the USMCA, a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that the Trump administration negotiated as an update to the North American Free Trade Agreement; lowering the price of prescription drugs and finding a way to solve immigration problems on the Southern border.
Some argue these contentious issues could be remedied, in part, by a shift in the Congressional schedule that maintains the August recess, said Ryan Clancy, chief strategist for No Labels, a group looking for ways to break partisan gridlocks.
Instead of Congress holding sessions three days a week while in Washington, No Labels suggests a fiveday workweek, with longer chunks of time back home.
“Something like the August recess is actually very consistent with the proposal we describe,” Mr. Clancy said. “The point is to get Congress closer to a normal workweek, the kind of workweek familiar to most Americans. ... We’d probably get some better government if the members spend more time talking to their colleagues.”