Home Yvonne Surette: Ben Cline needs to get his congressional priorities in order
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Yvonne Surette: Ben Cline needs to get his congressional priorities in order

Yvonne Surette
ben cline
Ben Cline. Photo: © lev radin/Shutterstock

When we, the people, elect candidates to the House of Representatives, we expect them to fulfill what is a fairly simple role: fight for important initiatives that improve our lives, provide oversight for the executive branch, and keep checks on how the government is spending our money. They are supposed to protect us, the citizens.

So how is our representative, here in the Sixth Congressional District, Ben Cline, doing?

Is he, for instance, doing his best to stop another U.S. president from committing us to another forever Middle East war? One that could see his own constituents dying in? Is he making sure that our money is being used wisely for citizens’ needs, and not for enriching the president and his family? Is he taking care to meet our health needs, such as ensuring there is no poison in our greens? Is he trying to improve conditions for our farmers who are struggling against high energy and fertilizer prices and drought?

Is he doing all he can to protect us?

Well, apparently, he thinks so, having just this week, introduced a bill that will …

Wait for it …

Limit membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution to those born biologically female.


ICYMI


Cline is the primary sponsor of this bill, H.R. 9701.

This is Ben’s priority – making sure no trans folks get into what is essentially a club?

Mind you, there are 698,500 trans women in the U.S. – that’s a whopping 0.232833333% of the American population.

And of those, how many, I wonder, are clamoring to join the DAR? Can’t be a whole lot.

And why is Ben doing this anyway?

He says, “I will continue to stand up for women from Virginia as their representative in Congress.”

It’s for our protection.

You know, against those dangerous transgender women.

I am not sure that Ben knows that our current executive branch is continuing to protect an adjudicated rapist who has also been accused credibly of sexual assault by 28 women. And it looks like someone needs to inform him that the Secretary of Defense made a legal settlement with a woman who accused him of rape in 2018. Cline doesn’t know either that just this week, a candidate for Attorney General spent most of his confirmation hearing not answering questions about the Department of Justice’s refusal to aggressively investigate the biggest sex trafficking ring in history.

But by all means, let’s protect the women! You never know when one of those trans women will want to be in the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The Sixth District deserves better. We deserve a congressperson who will do the actual job outlined in the Constitution, not one who is just fighting insensible culture battles.

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Yvonne Surette

Yvonne Surette

Yvonne Surette lives in Staunton, where she is the outreach coordinator and PR assistant for the Staunton Democratic Committee. Before she retired, her professional life was spent in high school and college classrooms teaching English and creative writing. She has been published in local and national publications such as The Boston Globe, The News Virginian, Rivanna Review and Vogue Knitting.

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