DeLissio should focus on bills supporting younger residents

To the Editor:

First and foremost, I would like to congratulate Rep. DeLissio for being re-elected to represent the 194th District in the Pennsylvania House.

I would also like to say that I am quite fond of her ideas for the City of Philadelphia ,and I admire her heartfelt desire to reflect the concerns of her constituents.

I can see that she loves assisting the older citizens of Philadelphia based on the hHouse bills that she has sponsored and her 20 years of work experience in longterm care. I believe that is a wonderful thing because older citizens in this city need that kind of support.

However, as one of many of her younger constituents, none of those bills help people under the age of 65. Hopefully, this will change in the near future.

I would like to express my concern about her lack of support for education. She has supported vouchers for students to attend private schools due to better resources. She also has sponsored H.B. 564, which requires students in grades seven to 12 to take at least one civics test, but that is about the extent of her push for education improvements.

In Roxborough/Manayunk, almost all of the schools are public schools, yet I have not seen her support for such institutions. I know what it’s like to not have resources. I attend a public high school, and though it may be known for its prestigious academics, it still doesn’t have everything that it could. I believe that instead of sponsoring vouchers for students and their families to find schools with the better resources, she should sponsor bills that can bring the resources to students, especially since public schools are the majority in her district. I believe that if she begins sponsoring bills that provide equal educational opportunities that she would help enrich about 25 percent of the lives in the Roxborough community.

I would also like to express my concern about her lack of support for any gun safety legislation bills. I know this is an issue that she feels strongly about and based on her speech at the Public Safety Hearings on April 9 with the House Judiciary Committee, she highly values her constituents’ concerns about gun safety as well. That being said, she has yet to sponsor any bills on gun safety. She claims that if we are to ever stop gun violence, we need to usher in new gun safety legislation at both the state and federal level. I would like to point out that Rep. DeLissio now has the power to let her voice be heard at state level and she has had the power since 2011. I think now is the time for her to use it.

It would be a great idea for her to sponsor some new legislation bills or create some on her own. Mental health is an issue that should be considered a factor when it comes to creating the new safety legislation. Anyone can snap at anytime, and even if someone passed a background check and are deemed a “safe” person, no one could ever know what’s going on in their mind. This is often overlooked when it comes to allowing someone to legally register a gun, and it does not take long for someone’s mental state to go from good to horrible. As Rep. DeLisso goes on to create her new legislation bill or speak out against gun violence in the future, I hope that she keeps that in mind.

I believe that our representative has the capability to make our future great, and I hope she use this new term to take that opportunity. I send my best wishes not only to her but to the rest of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in their future terms in office.