Bucks County has been saddled for too long with an ineffective congressional representative who is either unable or unwilling to advance the priorities of the people of Bucks County.
Brian Fitzpatrick’s record in Congress is one of hypocrisy, failure, and missed opportunities.
He may have found some mild success when he first arrived, but since then, his career has been defined by his inability to deliver for the people of Bucks County.
So what has Fitzpatrick been doing for us in Washington?
In August of 2020, Tropical Storm Isaias ravaged Bucks County with flooding, high winds, and tornados. The damages totaled into the millions. Businesses were shut down, there were widespread power outages, and a tragic loss of life as a car was swept away in a flash flood.
Fitzpatrick’s legislative response? He introduced a bill in October to provide emergency funding to Health Clubs, securing federal grants for fitness clubs as COVID relief. The largest fitness club in Bucks County just happens to also be a regular host to Donald Trump rallies and its owner is Trump’s biggest booster in this part of the state.
When the people of Bucks County were being flooded out of their homes, Fitzpatrick was securing federal dollars for a major donor to help keep his fitness club afloat.
In July of 2021, flash floods swept through our county again. Once more leading to loss of life and major damage to homes and businesses. In September, while residents were still putting their lives back together, tornadoes spawned by Tropical Storm Ida wreaked destruction in the county. One tornado with 130 MPH winds tore an eight-mile track of destruction from Upper Dublin to Horsham.
How did Fitzpatrick respond? In November of 2021, he introduced a resolution to support designating the week beginning November 8th as “National School Psychology Week.” This could, if you squint and turn your head, be considered something of a response to the storm as the Upper Dublin High School had been damaged when a tornado hurled a tree at it. But I think the people of Bucks County deserve more from their representative in Washington.
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In his last two terms, incidents of flooding have caused tens of millions of dollars in damages and taken lives in our county; including the 2023 tragedy which took the lives of a mother and her young children. While our state government has responded with the 2023 creation of a flood insurance premium task force championed by State Rep. Perry Warren and Bucks State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, the same cannot be said of our federal representative.
Rep. Fitzpatrick has issued not a single resolution or bill to address these repeated tragedies. While our Democratic state government representatives are working to protect the people of our county, Fitzpatrick is designating school psychology weeks and sending federal dollars not to devastated Bucks County Families but to his, and former President Trump’s, biggest booster in Bucks County.
A charitable person might assume that Rep. Fitzpatrick has to be doing something behind the scenes. Not everything that a member of the House of Representatives does is reflected in bills authored or sponsored. We’ve all seen the movies and TV Shows that build up the powerful influence of a well-respected legislator.
Sadly, Representative Fitzpatrick fails to deliver on that front, as well. His lack of influence is plain in his failure to secure the support of his own party’s leadership on even the least controversial topics.
Rather than introducing legislation to direct federal dollars to rebuild flood-ravaged homes in Bucks County or to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to work closely with local governments to improve stormwater management, Fitzpatrick has focused on protecting the welfare of horses in 2023 and puppies in 2023, 2021, and 2019. While it’s hard to find an issue as universally agreeable as protecting puppies, and each of these bills had enough support to pass if they came to a floor vote, Rep. Fitzpatrick still couldn’t get the job done.
Whether the House agenda is controlled by Republicans or Democrats, Brian Fitzpatrick can’t deliver for the people of Bucks County. He likes to talk about his bipartisanship, and it’s clear that both parties agree: Brian Fitzpatrick’s priorities don’t get a vote. It’s a striking statement on his effectiveness that neither Republicans nor Democrats see fit to advance his initiatives.
If Rep. Fitzpatrick can’t get his own party to agree to protect the welfare of puppies when he has 236 votes lined up, how is he going to get them to secure federal support for changes to the national flood insurance program? How is he going to protect seniors when big banks make risky bets with their retirements and fail? How can Brian Fitzpatrick keep good middle-class jobs in our state when his own leadership won’t listen to him?
I’ll be interested to hear how he defends his record as the least effective member of the House in a debate against his challenger, Ashley Ehasz. But just as his bills never show up on the House floor, I doubt we’ll see Rep. Fitzpatrick show up at the debate podium. There has been no debate yet, he has thus far refused to agree to one, and there are only 21 days until the election.
Bucks County deserves a representative in Congress who prioritizes our people over his financial boosters. It’s become abundantly clear that Fitzpatrick isn’t that representative. It’s time for Bucks County to elect someone who can deliver — someone like Ashley Ehasz, who will fight for the community and bring the leadership Bucks County needs to make an impact in Congress.
