August 17, 2010
To my friends at Progressive Kick,
“I want to thank you for your generous support in my recent primary election. Despite being vastly outspent, I was able to turn back two establishment backed candidates who I know would not have carried the progressive voice I have developed during my first term in Harrisburg…
I became a grassroots community activist and worked with my neighbors to take back drug corners and crack houses. We planted community gardens and organized financial literacy clinics to address the chronic financial blight that we confront in urban America…
Before I was elected, I met with representatives of the Prison Society and learned that Pennsylvania state jails still had a policy to shackle woman prisoners during labor and birth. I promised the advocates that I would work stop this horrible practice and within days was able to get on the phone with the Commissioner of Prisons. I made my case then, in hearings on subsequent legislation and couldn’t have been prouder when Governor Rendell signed the legislation changing that policy earlier this year…
I plan to use my new position as Chair of the Urban Sustainability Caucus to promote a new progressive agenda of bringing renewable energy jobs, urban agriculture and community infrastructure investment back to our urban cities…”
Thank you,
Vanessa Brown
Member Pennsylvania House 190th District
