Letters: Voters chose pro-worker candidates; Hate at Penn State

Voters chose pro-worker candidates

The working people of Seven Mountains Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, congratulate Representative-Elect Paul Takac on his election victory, and Representative Scott Conklin on his reelection.

Delegates to our labor council and members of our affiliate unions worked hard to talk to union families and contact voters about the stakes for working families in the midterm elections. Working families in Centre County understood that the union way of life was at stake and stood up and showed up at the polls, electing pro-worker politicians up and down the ticket.

With Representative-Elect Takac, we have a new voice for working families in Harrisburg: one who knows the union way of life and will stand with all workers and defend our rights, and the rights of the most marginalized. True champions for working people are rare, and Representative-Elect Takac will join the select ranks of our most passionate, dedicated advocates in the General Assembly.

Not only will Representative-Elect Takac fight to defend and strengthen the union way of life and our rights on the job, he understands that the rights of working people are broader than just the right to dignity at work. Working people deserve universal health care access with safe staffing, reproductive freedom, common-sense approaches to gun safety, good public schools for our children, and protections for LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians.

Paul Takac understands what working families deserve, and we look forward to standing with him as he fights for us in Harrisburg.

Hate at Penn State

Hate-advocates Gavin McInnes and Alex Stein were invited to Penn State on Oct. 24 by the Penn State student organization Uncensored America. Student organizations at Penn State must have a faculty or staff advisor. The advisor to Uncensored America is Kenneth Layng, a staff person in the Office of Development and Alumni Relations.

A bit more information about Mr. Layng is in order. According to publicly available information, Mr. Layng submitted a Right-To-Know request to Centre County this past summer seeking personal information on all voters who participated in the 2020 General Election from every precinct in our county. Centre County wisely denied this request, but I would certainly like to know why Mr. Layng feels entitled to my personal voter information. More recently, Mr. Layng stated during the public comment portion of the Nov. 1 meeting of the Centre County Board of Elections that it is “OK that women may vote, but not immigrants.”

Mr. Layng appears to lack training or qualifications to advise a student organization, and he may be mis-using a university system designed to support and care for students for his own ideological agenda. He is not a Penn State faculty member nor is he part of the Student Affairs staff who typically are experts in student development.

Given their influence over students and the use of Student Activity Fee funds, Penn State may want to consider steps to ensure that all advisors to student organizations are qualified to mentor and advise students.