Hey John,
In just a second, my brother Dennis and I are going to ask you to do something a little different for John Fetterman's campaign today: Directly reply to this email with a few words about why you're supporting John in this race for Senate.
But since we're asking you to share, we thought we'd introduce ourselves first — and tell you why we're here organizing to help elect John.
Dennis and I were born and raised in Philly. We grew up in a good family in some of Philly’s toughest neighborhoods. Our mother taught us compassion and our father taught us to work hard. That's what we did until we were unjustly arrested and sentenced to die in prison. And if not for John, that would be how our story ends.
The first time we heard of John was when we heard he was fighting for the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons to grant commutation — mercy and a real second chance — to my brother and me. We'd both already served close to three decades of a life sentence for a crime we didn't commit, and John made it clear that he'd put his career on the line to make sure we got out.
He didn’t look like the type of person that would be supporting two guys that look like us. Up until that point we had reached out to hundreds of people, like two drowning men trying to not go under, but no one saw us. It was as if we were invisible. But there he was, fighting hard as anybody's ever fought for us in our lives. After all the years fighting alone, someone finally saw us. We weren’t invisible anymore.
The day we were both released from prison was February 12, 2021. Honestly, it didn't feel real until the first moment I was riding in the car and realized I wasn't handcuffed. That feeling of freedom, after so many years, is something that will always stay with me.
Facetiming with John and Celeste on the day of our release after 27 years.
A lot of tears that day.
John is a breath of fresh air because he’s not the same as everybody else. When he starts talking, you see that he has so much emotion and so much compassion in him and a deep commitment to making change. We're here and ready to get to work with John because he saw the value in correcting an injustice and in saving our lives. We see people the same way. John is the type of person we need fighting for us in the Senate. He did so much work for us and other folks in our situation, and we know he'll keep putting in work for our communities when he gets to Washington.
In the nearly 20 years before John Fetterman chaired the PA Board of Pardons, they only held votes on about 30 commutation cases and sent just 12 to the governor’s desk for approval. But here's the thing: In John's first two and a half years as Lieutenant Governor, the board considered 67 cases and recommended 32 to Governor Wolf. His work and what he's done speak for itself.
Dennis agrees. Everybody talks about how the system is broken, but rarely do people actually fight for the bold solutions to fix the system and help real people. To Dennis and me, John is really here to actually do the work and fix the system. We need someone in the Senate to go in there and shake things up just like he did on the Board of Pardons. This is the reason it's so easy for us to come on board and do what is needed of us to make him the next senator.
The three of us last month.
We both believe in John, John, and we're excited to be here on this campaign talking to and organizing alongside people like you. Now that you've heard about why we're supporting John Fetterman, we hope you'll share your story, too.
Please reply directly to this email with your story of why you're supporting John's campaign. No two stories will be exactly the same. We're all bringing our perspective to this thing. But the way we'll win is through sharing and amplifying each other's stories, so we hope you'll take a few minutes to tell us why you're proud to be a part of this fight.
Just hit reply to this email, write down your thoughts, and then members of our campaign staff will read each one of the stories we hear back from you and this team.
Thank you — and see you out there!
Lee Horton and Dennis Horton
Field Organizers, John Fetterman for U.S. Senate
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Email us: [email protected]
This email was sent to [email protected]. Email is the most important way we keep in touch with people like you, so thank you for reading to the end. Small donors like you keep us going. To contribute via check, please address to Fetterman for PA, PO Box 6061, Pittsburgh PA 15211.
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