A Democratic National Committee vice chair plans to walk more than 100 miles in Pennsylvania to raise awareness for cuts to the state’s mass-transit services, arguing that they’re what working-class voters can expect under more Republican control.
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta plans to start his walk on Friday from Philadelphia to the state’s Capitol in Harrisburg, hoping to nationalize a local fight in a key battleground state.
“This is coming to your state. You thought Republicans just wanted to cut waste, fraud and abuse? That’s not what they wanted to do. They wanted to cut all of it,” Kenyatta told NOTUS. “You have people who depend on the busses and trains not being able to get where they need to go with these massive, unprecedented cuts.”
He acknowledged that the brunt of the reconciliation bill Republicans in Congress recently passed won’t be felt by voters until after the midterms. That’s why he’s taking this state issue, which sprang from a funding fight in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, to the national stage, he said.
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Kenyatta, in his first year in a leadership position at the DNC, wants to call attention to what he called his opponents’ tendencies to “strip and burn everything that working families depend on from government.” He says this transit issue is an example of how it’s already playing out in his home state.
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, is a lifeline for residents of the Philadelphia area, as well for some commuters from Delaware and New Jersey — but its public transit services are on the brink of even more drastic cuts due to partisan gridlock.
Republicans and Democrats are currently in a budgetary stalemate that took place between the Republican-controlled state Senate and the Democratic-controlled state House. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration has also frequently spoken in support of permanent mass transit funding, but has signalled a willingness to accept one-time funding solutions to prevent service cuts in the meantime.
Kenyatta said the move is “emblematic” of a new approach by the DNC, which has recently taken more interest in helping Democrats push back at the state level, such as with the partisan redistricting battle playing out across several states.
“People have said over and over again they want to see Democrats in the DNC fighting, and I think this is a prime example,” he said.
He said he’ll be livestreaming on Instagram between stops, interviewing commuters and other Democratic leaders about why they value public transit.
It’s one of his first national stunts during his new leadership stint at the DNC.
The first phase of the drastic cuts to Pennsylvania’s mass-transit system took place on Thursday. Two lines were eliminated. There’s no more weekend service.
Services have already been reduced, and fares increased by 21.5%. Many local officials in the state have expressed concerns that the cuts will lead to children not making it to school, which Kenyatta said he was worried about as well.
The public transit system maintains that without a fix from Republican state leaders, more drastic cuts will come.
“Without a permanent funding solution, SEPTA will be forced to take drastic steps to irreversibly shrink the system,” its website states.
In public statements, Shapiro has been begging state senators to consider a fix in order to “keep Pennsylvania moving.”
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