Washington, D.C. – Council for a Livable World's PeacePAC today announced its endorsement of three candidates running for reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008: John Hall (D-NY-19), Patrick Murphy (D-PA-8), and Joe Sestak (D-PA-7). All three candidates were first elected in 2006 and each has fought since being elected to repair the foreign policy blunders of the Bush administration.
PeacePAC is the electoral arm of Council for a Livable World in the House of Representatives. For over 30 years, PeacePAC has identified the most competitive candidates throughout the country who will be strong advocates of peace and arms control. In the 2006 election cycle, its supporters contributed $600,000 to progressive House candidates.
"These three candidates are passionately dedicated to bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq," said PeacePAC chair Patricia Schroeder, who represented Colorado's First Congressional District (Denver) in the House from 1973 to 1997. "All three won by very narrow margins and have been targeted for defeat by Republican strategists."
Schroeder was recently named PeacePAC chair. She succeeds the late Father Robert F Drinan, who passed away in January 2007 after a long and distinguished career in public service, including 10 years as the Representative from Massachusetts' Fourth Congressional District.
Hall, a founding member of the popular rock band Orleans, is a charismatic campaigner who has spent much of his life as an activist and advocate for progressive causes. Murphy, the only Iraq war veteran serving in Congress, took the lead this spring in opposing President Bush's "surge" strategy, calling the policy "immoral" and "the same delusion" as Vietnam. Sestak is a former three-star Navy admiral who has quickly become one of the Democrats' leading voices on defense issues. All three Representatives received significant support from PeacePAC during their 2006 campaigns.
"Supporting such high-caliber candidates was pretty much a no-brainer," remarked PeacePAC director Guy Stevens. "The only way to rollback the disastrous foreign policy of the Bush administration is to keep electing members who take a strong, principled stand and understand what's at stake."
