Titus knows the meaning of integrity

Tom Harper, Henderson

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 | 2:04 a.m.

While reading Delen Goldberg’s article in Monday’s Las Vegas Sun, “College Republicans keep heat on Dina Titus,” my thought was: When did people in politics lose sight of the fact that they are to serve the greater good for everyone and not just the partisan interests of their own parties?

The article points out that UNLV College Republicans, led by Mark Ciavola, a 36-year-old former employee of Joe Heck and the Republican National Committee, launched a vicious campaign against Titus, including the setup of an anti-Titus website,

womanwithoutintegrity.com.

The 111th Congress, of which Titus was a member, was the most productive Congress this country has seen since at least the Great Society years of the 1960s. During the session, Titus had the integrity to support necessary health care reform even though the legislation would be vilified by opponents as “Obamacare” and demonized through allegations of death panels.

Titus, whom I supported, had the integrity not only to back such necessary health care reform but also to draw ire from Democrats when she voted against the initial health care legislation; she then worked to modify it to provide better benefits for all Americans.

Based on her long, honorable and distinguished career as a state senator and congresswoman, it is Titus who knows the true definition of personal sacrifice and integrity. It is Titus who, unlike her detractors, truly recognizes the mission of public servants as described by President Lyndon B. Johnson in his “The American Promise” speech of March 15, 1965, that “our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country: to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man.”