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Wicks abandons
utility ratepayers

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks has abandoned her responsibility to her constituents. She is chairperson of the Appropriations Committee and on Thursday, she refused to vote (abstained) on AB 1999.

This was the only bill for which the committee actually held a vote, and it would have capped the fixed payment on our PG&E bills. In these days of ever-rising utility bills, she should have helped the ratepayers by doing something. Instead, she did nothing. Now, there is no limit to how much PG&E can add to our bills as “fixed charges.”

Michael Coan
El Cerrito

Faltering Democrats
should consider future

Re: “New centrism rising in Washington amid partisan politics” (Page A7, May 19).

David Leonhardt’s quote, “neoliberal policies didn’t work out so well for a large coalition of working people” in his May 19 column, may come up in the Democratic Party’s post-mortem, following Donald Trump’s election Nov. 5.

As they try to rebuild a shattered party, the analysts would do well to examine this quote. If Batya Ungar-Sargon’s interviews of working-class members in her book “Second Class” are representative, then it will not be race nor ethnocentricity that determine the election, but class. The working classes vote. The rioting students and older wokians (I know many) will vote for Kennedy, or not at all, because they are ideologues, and Joe Biden isn’t woke enough for them.

Without a miracle, I see little chance this scenario can be avoided. Perhaps this is a good time to consider the future of what is left of the Democratic Party.

Howard Winet
Berkeley

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