{"id":10549,"date":"2014-01-28T11:30:16","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T16:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=10549"},"modified":"2014-01-28T11:27:34","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T16:27:34","slug":"houghton-announces-bid-to-take-on-pitts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=10549","title":{"rendered":"Houghton announces bid to take on Pitts"},"content":{"rendered":"

London Grove Democrat cites his record on agriculture, bi-partisanship<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Houghton12714\"<\/a>

Former State Representative Tom Houghton makes a point about his record of working across the aisle, in announcing Monday that he would take on veteran U.S. Rep Joe Pitts in the race for the 16th District Congressional seat.<\/p><\/div>\n

WEST HEMPFIELD \u2014 In a frosty Lancaster barn full of hay, former State Representative Tom Houghton announced in front of a bevy of supporters Monday that he would take on veteran U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts for the 16th District seat in Congress.<\/p>\n

The London Grove Democrat acknowledged that the race against Pitts, who has held the seat since 1997 representing parts of Chester, Lancaster and Berks counties, including Kennett Square and parts of Kennett Township, would be a challenge. But after the 2013 government shutdown \u2014 and Pitts being one of the few Congress members from southeast Pennsylvania to actively support it, Houghton said he felt he could no longer just stand by.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been asked before to make the run, and when I watched what happened with the government shutdown and the fact that Rep. Pitts was one of the few to sign on to that letter to actually shut down the government, I thought that was just over the top and outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just couldn\u2019t sit and watch anymore,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

And so Houghton, 45, who has a law practice in West Grove, announced his race, focusing on two major themes: his track record of working across the aisle both a Township Supervisor in London Grove and later as a State Representative to get things done and his record of fighting for agriculture and farmers \u2014 which prompted Monday\u2019s snowy locale.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was crucial for us to announce here on a farm, because I realize important agriculture is,\u201d he said. \u201cNot just to this race, and I\u2019m going to make sure it is a big issue, but anyone who knows me, knows that since I first ran for township supervisor, agriculture was basically the platform of every one of our races.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HoughtonAnnounce\"<\/a>

Supporters of Tom Hought’s bid for Congress, sit on hay bales during Monday afternoon’s announcement.<\/p><\/div>\n

Houghton spoke about the fertile soils of the area \u2014 which he said were among the best in the the planet \u2014 which he said makes farming important. But he noted it goes beyond that \u2014 that preserving lands as farms is also good economic policy. As seen in Chester County and elsewhere in the district, as farms are converted into housing subdivisions, local taxes increase \u2014 unlike farms, each home requires far more in services from roads to schools than it pays in property taxes, increasing the overall burden across the board, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaving farm land is not only environmentally sound, it\u2019s fiscally responsible,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it is the number one industry in Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n

He cited his efforts to preserve London Grove\u2019s agricultural zone as a township supervisor, and then his work in the state legislature, where he sponsored the \u201cPA Preferred\u201d program, to highlight farm products produced within the commonwealth and revisions to the \u201cClean and Green\u201d farm property tax reduction law to allow installation of green energy collectors such as solar panels or windmills on a portion of the property, without losing the entire tax reduction status.<\/p>\n

And none of these issues could have gone anywhere without the ability to work beyond party labels to find compromises \u2014 and ultimately, solutions, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to get this stuff done, not because I\u2019m some great legislative hero, it\u2019s about working across the aisle,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we were able to do, coming together with other people despite their party and saying \u2018what\u2019s best for this area, what\u2019s best for Pennsylvania.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

He promised to bring that spirit \u2014 something he said is badly needed \u2014 to Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want a leader who simply cares and knows how to get things done,\u201d Houghton said. \u201cNo matter what some of my past constituents might say about me, whether they agreed or disagreed with me, there\u2019s none of them that can say that I don\u2019t hold those two qualities. I\u2019m running for Congress in the 16th District, because I believe that people in the district want someone to go to Washington for them that can fight for them. That\u2019s something I will do.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to dozens of supporters, Houghton was joined Monday by his wife of 20 years, Danelle and his two children, Ben, age 10 and Marley, age 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London Grove Democrat cites his record on agriculture, bi-partisanship By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times WEST HEMPFIELD \u2014 In a frosty Lancaster barn full of hay, former State Representative Tom Houghton announced in front of a bevy of supporters Monday that he would take on veteran U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts for the 16th District seat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[1555,3495,649,3652,3926],"class_list":["post-10549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-16th-congressional-district","tag-election-2014","tag-joe-pitts","tag-tom-houghton","tag-u-s-congress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}