John Murtha Has Passed Away

As a lifelong resident of the Mid-Monongahela Valley (in Southwestern Pennsylvania), I have mixed emotions on the news of US Representative John Murtha's passing.

While I live in Mr. Murtha's district and usually vote Democrat, I was never comfortable voting for him. There are several reasons for this:

I was one of the vocal critics who were against the phase-out of Rep. Frank Mascara's district in favor of the redrawn district that favored Mr. Murtha. Mr. Mascara was from the Mid-Monongahela Valley, and I was more comfortable having a local voice in Washington as opposed to a regional voice in Mr. Murtha.

My business travels used to take me to Johnstown, Murtha's home base. I could easily see many areas of the city that benefited from his work. You can't say that the same thing was evident in the Mid-Monongahela Valley. In fairness, he was given the district late in his lengthy political career.

As I worked in journalism and public relations, there were times that I needed to contact his staff regarding legislative matters. They clearly were not interested in the matters so long as they realized the information did not pertain to Mr. Murtha's real home base-Johnstown. Finding satellite offices were a chore in that they were often too far out of the area.

As a citizen, despite my alliance to the Democrats, I felt a bigger responsibility to vet Mr. Murtha's considerable baggage as to alleged corruption and scandal.

I found myself voting against him. I felt like he was out of touch with the practical realities of his newly annexed district, and I never would get over this feeling, no matter how long he would have been in office.

On the national stage, I realized that Mr. Murtha was the real deal, a genuine power broker who was a part of many historic political votes.

I respect Mr. Murtha's history as a war veteran and his success as a career politician.

I agreed with many of the votes he took and stances he made on the national stage.

Not so much locally.

I am sorry for his family and friends.

I felt that Mr. Murtha represented much of what is wrong with many of his Washington D.C. colleagues in that they are guys who have been around too long defending their positions nationally at the expense of their districts.

I feel bad that he has passed away. I never counted myself as a supporter and hope that his successor will be more accessible to the Mid-Monongahela Valley.