A Brief Look at State Rep. Greg Vitali's Writings

I've long been a fan of State Rep. Greg Vitali.  Among his many accomplishments is a steady record of op-eds and letters to the editor.  These works have been published in papers across the Commonwealth.  I did a search of Pennsylvania newspapers (author:  Greg Vitali or Gregory Vitali or Gregory S. Vitali), sorted through, trying to delete duplicate publications by noting similar titles within a few days of each other, and then reviewing the results.  That left 61 items, though in the course of skimming through them there were four duplicates that had escaped my earlier culling.  I am by no means suggesting this is an exhaustive list; it is very possible that I missed some or that some were published in papers that I don't have online access to.

While his op-eds and letters were published in a variety of papers, when more than one version was available I took the longest, which was most often from either the Philadelphia Inquirer or Delaware County publications like the Daily Times.

There are certainly themes to his writing but there are enough of them that a synopsis of them is a bit much for a single blog post.  Rep. Vitali has 19 guest columns on his legislative website (http://www.pahouse.com/vitali/all.asp?med=COL) that you can browse to get a sense of his writing style.

However, I can provide a breakdown by year, which indicates a steady output, and by overall subject, though the categories are somewhat elastic.

Chronological breakdown:

1995 - 3
1996 - 3
1997 - 2
1998 - 1
1999 - 1
2000 - 1
2001- 4
2002 - 1
2003 - 5
2004 - 3
2005 - 5
2006 - 7
2007 - 5
2008 - 5
2009 - 5
2010 - 2
2011 - 5
2012 - 2
2013 - 1

General subject breakdown:

campaign finance reform:  5
government reform (including pay raise) 8
tort reform 1
lobbying reform 2
open records 1
education / property tax 2
mandatory minimum sentencing 2
gay marriage 2

fracking 5
global warming 13
recycling 1
environmental protection 7
energy policy / strategy 7

Haverford State Hospital 5
campaign related 1

As you can see he writes a lot on reform measure and environmental matters.  These are two general themes I have noticed in his legislative and advocacy efforts.  The Haverford State Hospital is an important issue in his district.