In Bucks County, Democracy Dies in Silence: PA State House Election Forum on Education Canceled Due to Lack of Candidate Participation

We have a democracy crisis in Bucks County.

Bucks County’s chapters of the NAACP and League of Women Voters announced Wednesday that a scheduled Pennsylvania State House candidate forum on education scheduled for September 12 at Bucks County Community College had to be canceled.

Why? Apparently too many candidates weren’t interested in participating.

This is disgraceful, inexcusable, and quite frankly pathetic. What’s worse, I am unaware of any other candidate forums or debates scheduled before the November 5 election.

First, I’m not sure congratulations are in order for the six candidates who agreed to participate since this is the bare minimum of what voters should expect from people expecting their vote. Nevertheless, the one Republican and five Democrats should be recognized:

(Top Row L-R) Anand Patel (D), 18th District; Candace Cabanas (R) and Rep. Jim Prokopiak (D), 140th District; (Bottom Row L-R) Eleanor Breslin (D), 143rd District; Rep. Brian Munroe (D), 144th District; and Vera Cole (D), 145th District.

Now here are the candidates the Bucks NAACP and League of Women Voters couldn’t get commitments from: Rep. KC Tomlinson (R), 18th District; Rep. Tim Brennan (D) and Steve Mekanik (R), 29th District; Rep. Perry Warren (D) and Bernie Sauer (R), 31st District; Rep. Tina Davis (D) and Noah Boyd (R), 141st District; Anna Payne (D) and Rep. Joe Hogan (R), 142nd District; Rep. Shelby Labs (R), 143rd District; Daniel McPhillips (R), 144th District; Rep. Craig Staats (R), 145th District; Rep. Kristin Marcel (R), 178th District. (The list the Bucks NAACP provided me shows they reached out to Democrat Emma Rosenthal, who was originally slated to run against Marcel. However, she was recently replaced by Paul Lang .)

Shame on all of them. They are the reason why this event was canceled.

“Our concern is candidates are controlling information by putting what they want us to know on their website and not making themselves available to answer constituents’ questions,” said Bucks NAACP President Karen Downer, explaining that this leads to voter apathy and suppresses voter participation.

READ: Bucks County Republican State Representatives K.C. Tomlinson and Craig Staats Vote Against Free Lunch for K-12 Students

This nonpartisan forum would have given candidates a chance to answer questions pre-submitted by the public on where they stand, and in some cases have voted on, on issues such as education funding for K-12,  school vouchers, book banning/censorship, and school safety.

“Our intent was to give our representatives a platform for their constituents to meet them. It was a forum, not a debate,” said Downer. “Like a job interview, we should have an opportunity to meet the people who are applying for the job.”

That seems sensible.

Downer said that candidates even had the choice to only answer questions they wanted. I actually don’t agree with this candidate coddling and think this is very problematic, but it was their event and they didn’t want to “put anyone on the spot.” But isn’t that kind of what we should be doing – putting each candidate on the spot on the issues that we care about most?

What compounds this problem is a lack of local reporting on what’s happening in Harrisburg and with these races. In Gannett’s Bucks County Courier Times and Intelligencer newspapers, this reporting is virtually nonexistent. The Bucks County Herald doesn’t fare much better, though they just launched a “ Both Sides Now ” initiative where candidates in each race are invited to write a 600-word OpEd on whatever they want. However, given that it is a 600-word OpEd on whatever they want makes it more of a gimmick than a serious effort to educate voters. This just exacerbates our local democracy crisis.

READ: How Bucks County’s PA House Lawmakers Voted on Three Gun Safety Bills

The fact that candidates and elected officials don’t feel obligated to participate in a forum like what the Bucks County NAACP and League of Women Voters were kind enough to attempt to organize should both worry and enrage Bucks County voters. Democracy can’t function without candidate transparency and accessibility, and high-information voters. At a time of rampant misinformation and now AI-generated nonsense, it’s more important than ever for candidates to be accessible “IRL” (in real life) for voters to hear first-hand information that informs their votes.

All of these candidates must do better and we must demand better. Democracy depends on it.