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There is an election coming in November that I believe deserves more attention than it is getting. U.S. Rep. Kathy Rapp has represented Pennsylvania’s 65th Legislative District for many years, and Destiny Howard is challenging her for the seat. District 65 isn’t some distant political district on a map.
It is Warren County, Forest County and part of Crawford County. The person we elect will go to Harrisburg and make decisions that affect our hospitals, our families, our communities and our individual freedoms.
That is why I have been looking more closely at the differences between these two candidates. A campaign graphic comparing four pieces of legislation caught my attention recently. The four issues are very different: the Patient Safety Act dealing with nurse-to-patient staffing, legislation concerning recreational marijuana, a constitutional amendment addressing reproductive freedom, and legislation dealing with ghost guns. Yet taken together, I think they tell us something important about the kind of representation each candidate would bring to Harrisburg.
The first is House Bill 106, the Patient Safety Act. This legislation sought to establish minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in Pennsylvania hospitals. That matters to me because healthcare isn’t an abstract political issue. These are the people who will take care of us, our parents, our children and our neighbors when we are at our most vulnerable. Pennsylvania’s rural hospitals already face enormous challenges, and Warren County knows better than most how important it is to protect access to local healthcare. The disagreement over this bill represents a real difference in philosophy: do we rely primarily on existing systems and individual hospital decisions, or should the state establish minimum standards to make sure patients and nurses are protected?
Then there is House Bill 1200 and the question of recreational marijuana. The House narrowly passed the legislation in 2025, 102-101. For me, this issue isn’t about encouraging marijuana use. It is about whether Pennsylvania is willing to recognize that the world has changed and deal with marijuana through regulation, taxation, public safety standards and responsible oversight rather than pretending the issue doesn’t exist. A representative who is willing to consider a regulated approach is demonstrating a willingness to look at an issue differently and ask whether the policies we have today are actually working.
House Bill 1957 may be the most personal of the four. It concerns establishing a constitutional right to reproductive freedom. I believe there are some decisions the government simply should not make for us. Decisions involving pregnancy, contraception, fertility and other deeply personal healthcare choices belong primarily between individuals and their healthcare providers. Reasonable people can disagree about where they draw the line, but for me, the important question is whether we trust individuals to make deeply personal medical decisions for themselves or whether we want politicians making those decisions for them.
The fourth issue, House Bill 1099, concerns ghost guns and undetectable firearms. I believe responsible gun ownership and public safety can exist together. We should be able to respect the rights of responsible gun owners while also recognizing that weapons that are difficult to trace or manufactured outside the normal systems of accountability present legitimate public-safety concerns. Government has a responsibility to protect people, and I believe that responsibility includes addressing new challenges as they emerge.
What strikes me about these four issues is that they aren’t really about four individual pieces of legislation. They represent four questions about what we expect from our State Representative.
Do we want a representative who will look for ways to strengthen our healthcare system and protect patients and healthcare workers? Do we want someone willing to reconsider policies when the world around us changes? Do we want our representative to defend an individual’s ability to make deeply personal healthcare decisions? And do we want someone willing to address new public-safety challenges while still respecting individual rights?
Looking at the differences between Rep. Rapp’s actual votes and the positions Howard says she would have taken gives me a reason to look more closely at what Howard could bring to the job. It suggests to me a different approach to representation. Not simply a different party label, but a different willingness to use the office to address problems, reconsider old approaches and put people at the center of public policy.
I have never believed that a State Representative needs to agree with me on every issue. That isn’t realistic, and honestly, I don’t think it would be healthy. What I do believe is that we deserve a representative who understands that the job is about more than showing up in Harrisburg and casting votes. It is about listening to the people back home, understanding the challenges facing our communities and having the courage to make decisions based on what you believe is right for the people you represent.
This election is about who we want representing District 65.
For me, these four issues provide a pretty clear window into the kind of representation Destiny Howard would bring to Harrisburg. They show me someone who appears willing to approach some of the most difficult issues facing Pennsylvania from a different perspective.
And sometimes, that is exactly what an election is supposed to be about.
Not simply asking whether we should keep doing what we have always done, but asking whether we are ready for a different kind of representation.
Doug Hearn is a Warren resident.