Photo: Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris takes a selfie with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and his wife Gisele Barreto Fetterman after greeting supporters at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria Airport on September 13, 2024 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
September 13, 2024 – WILKES-BARRE — Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has spent most of the last two weeks in Pennsylvania starting with a Labor Day rally in Pittsburgh, where she returned a few days later to hunker down for debate prep. She debated former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee for president, in Philadelphia on Tuesday, and on Friday she campaigned in Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre, two areas that have swung Republican in recent elections.
“I will be continuing to travel around the state to make sure that I’m listening as much as we are talking,” Harris said during the Johnstown visit, according to pool reports. “And ultimately I feel very strongly that you’ve got to earn every vote, and that means spending time with folks in the communities where they live. And so that’s why I’m here and we’re going to be spending a lot more time in Pennsylvania.”
Luzerne County, where Wilkes-Barre is located. was once a Democratic stronghold, and is near President Joe Biden’s childhood hometown of Scranton. But Hillary Clinton lost the county by nearly 20 points in 2016, and Trump beat Biden but nearly 15 points in 2020.
Harris touched on familiar themes in her address to the audience at the McHale Athletic Center at Wilkes University, praising small business owners as the “backbone of America’s economy,” pledging to protect reproductive rights, and reiterating that her campaign for president was informed by her middle-class background.
“People sometimes just need the opportunity, because we as Americans do not lack for ambition, for aspiration, for dreams, for the preparedness to do hard work,” Harris said. She said if elected, her economic plan calls for building 3 million new homes by the end of her first term, and said she would take on corporate price-gouging, and expand the child tax credit.
Harris also said she would “get rid of unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs to increase jobs for folks without a four year degree” and would “challenge the private sector to do the same.”
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-12th District) speaks to the Pennsylvania delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago Aug. 22, 2024 (Capital-Star photo by Kim Lyons)
Delegates and candidates turn to the work of keeping the battleground state blue
By: Kim Lyons
Penn-Capital Star
August 25, 2024 – CHICAGO — Pennsylvania was the most popular kid in the class at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, and the battleground state and its 19 electoral votes were well represented in Chicago and on the convention’s nightly broadcasts. Each night featured a speaker from the Keystone State, with Lt. Gov. Austin Davis on Monday; state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta on Tuesday; Gov. Josh Shapiro on Wednesday and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey on Thursday.
Shapiro was unquestionably the biggest Pennsylvania presence at the DNC, due in part to his status as a runner-up to be presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. He was constantly booked during the week, speaking at numerous state delegations’ breakfasts, attracting the ire of GOP nominee former President Donald Trump, and appearing regularly on cable news channels.
Project 2025 played a key role at the convention, as Democrats continued to try to link the conservative policy plan to reshape the federal government and increase presidential authority with Trump.
Kenyatta, a candidate for state Auditor General held the giant Project 2025 book on stage Tuesday night,, and told the audience it was a “radical plan to drag us backwards, bankrupt the middle class and raise prices on working families like yours and mine.”
Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025 but several members of his administration were involved with helping to craft it.
“It’s a big, heavy book full of bad ideas, and it was one of these moments where we’re able to really get people to understand with the visual how serious Trump and this administration are about doubling down on his flawed theory of the case,” Kenyatta told the Capital-Star on the final day of the convention.
Our vote is the highest demonstration of the collective power we have… The purpose of this moment is to use our collective power to elect somebody who gives a damn about us, and then to work side by side with her to help implement the things that she’s talking about.
He added Project 2025 should serve as a warning to Democrats about what they believe a second Trump term would look like.
“When Trump burst onto the political scene, he did so with the thesis that ‘America sucks,’ and that it sucks in large part because our neighbors, the people in our community, people we don’t know — they’re somehow a part of bringing America down,” Kenyatta said, “and the only way we fix it is if we give him all the power.”
While Trump’s first term saw the former president “flailing around,” Kenyatta said, the architects of Project 2025 mapped out a plan for how to reach some of the goals of the far-right wing of the party, such as a national abortion ban and abolishing the U.S. Department of Education.
Kenyatta added he doesn’t believe in the political concept of giving all the power to one person to fix everything.
“Our vote is the highest demonstration of the collective power we have,” he said. “If we elect Kamala Harris in November and then say, ‘OK, we’ll see you in four years at the next convention. Hope you fix all the problems!’ then we’ve missed the thread. The purpose of this moment is to use our collective power to elect somebody who gives a damn about us, and then to work side by side with her to help implement the things that she’s talking about.”
At the final Pennsylvania delegates’ breakfast on Thursday, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-12th District) urged the battleground state delegates to keep up the convention’s momentum.
“We’re here honing our tools so that we can go out and do the very hard work, not for Kamala Harris. We’re not doing hard work for Summer Lee or any of my colleagues,” Lee said, but rather for marginalized and vulnerable people. “Think about that person whose name is in that book over the hundreds and hundreds of pages of Project 2025, who do we see there that we need to make sure is not touched by the evil and the horrors that they have lined up and ready for them.”
Davis, Pennsylvania’s youngest and first-ever Black lieutenant governor, addressed the convention on Monday night and spoke about the importance of building bridges. He appeared on stage with Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sarah Rodriguez, Harris County, Texas Executive Lena Hidalgo, and California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, all of whom shared stories about how Harris had made an impact on their communities.
“I grew up with working class parents in a small steel town in southwestern Pennsylvania, and to have the opportunity to speak on a national stage like that was incredibly humbling,” Davis told the Capital-Star. “It was just an example of how someone can live the American dream, so I hope folks who saw me saw that America should be a place where every person has that same opportunity.”
Davis said the question he heard most often over the course of the convention was whether Democrats can win Pennsylvania. “And I tell them, absolutely, we just have to keep showing up everywhere, competing in places that sometimes it’s not easy to be a Democrat,” he said.
Asked if there were “red” areas of the state he saw as possible to flip blue, he pointed to central Pennsylvania as having the most potential, particularly the race in the 10th Congressional District between former WGAL anchor Janelle Stelson and Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry.
“I think we have a great candidate in Janelle Stelson,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of energy also with [state Rep.] Patty Kim running for state Senate. So I think Dauphin, Lancaster, Cumberland — an area Governor Shapiro won when we were running on the ballot.”
Davis said not everyone was completely impressed with his star turn on television, however. His daughter Harper, whose 1st birthday is next month, was asleep by the time he appeared Monday night. “We’re going to replay it for her but she doesn’t care,” he said. “She only cares when I FaceTime her and she’s like, ‘Daddy, when are you coming home?’”
The bill was the first sponsored by Lee to pass the full House
Photo: Cliff Simmons, an oil and gas inspector supervisor for the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, points a methane sensor at an abandoned well on the Murrysville property of Pamela and Ivan Schrank on Thursday, March 28, 2024. Simmons visited the well site with other DEP officials, journalists and Rep. Summer Lee (PA-12). (Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Union Progress)
By Kim Lyons
Penn-Capitol Star
APRIL 30, 2024 – Cliff Simmons, an oil and gas inspector supervisor for the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, points a methane sensor at an abandoned well on the Murrysville property of Pamela and Ivan Schrank on Thursday, March 28, 2024. Simmons visited the well site with other DEP officials, journalists and Rep. Summer Lee (PA-12). (Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Union Progress)
The U.S. House on Tuesday passed a bipartisan bill aimed at finding the thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells across the country, and studying how to better limit their environmental impact.
The legislation would authorize the U.S. Department of Energy to establish a five-year program to improve the location data it has on abandoned wells — some 350,000 of which are believed to be unaccounted for in Pennsylvania alone.
The bill — the Abandoned Wells, Remediation, Research, and Development Act — was the first piece of legislation sponsored by Pennsylvania Democrat Summer Lee to pass the full House. It passed by a vote of 333-75.
“We cannot and should not accept the fact that leaky oil and gas wells from the 1800s are poisoning our communities,” Lee said on the House floor Tuesday. “We must invest significant resources to research and develop solutions to this crisis — because it is still nearly impossible to track every abandoned well, and it is still too expensive to plug leaking wells.
Pennsylvania has the second-largest number of abandoned oil and gas wells; only Texas has more.
Lee visited the Murrysville home of Pamela and Ivan Schrank last month, after the couple discovered a leaky abandoned well on their property. During that visit, Pamela Schrank told Lee how she discovered the well, when she became dizzy while gardening in their backyard. The Schranks reached out to the state Department of Environmental Protection to have the well plugged before further damage occurred.
U.S. Rep Summer Lee participates in a Democratic candidates’ forum in Pittsburgh, Jan. 28, 2024
The three wasted no time describing their differences and why their opponents were wrong for the job.
By Kim Lyons
Penncapital-Star
JAN 28, 2024 - PITTSBURGH— The three candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District came out swinging during a forum at Carnegie Mellon University on Sunday, not only demonstrating their differences but their willingness to criticize their fellow Democrats in areas of disagreement. And there were plenty of areas of disagreement.
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-12th District), Edgewood Borough Councilmember Bhavini Patel and Laurie MacDonald, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Center for Victims, took the stage at the forum moderated by journalist Chris Potter of WESA-FM, Avalon Sueiro, president of the CMU College Democrats, and Heidi Norman, who works for the City of Pittsburgh and is a Democratic committeewoman in the city’s 14th Ward.
The first questioner asked the candidates to offer their thoughts on the role of a Congressional representative in navigating the complex situation in the Middle East. Lee has received criticism for her position supporting a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
MacDonald said her father was an immigrant from the Middle East, who wanted to “assimilate” and to have people judge him on who he was. She said she was passionate about putting together a coalition of peacemakers in the region, although recognized it would not be easy. “I think if we work together and continue with the Abraham Accords, and get that process going that we can find room for everybody in this world.”
Patel criticized Lee for not attending local rallies with the Jewish community in the days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and for tweeting out information about a hospital bombing in Gaza that was later found to be erroneous. “To me that’s stoking hatred, that’s stoking antisemitism and it puts people in our communities in a tragic, dangerous position,” Patel said. “That is unacceptable.”
Bhavini Patel participates in a Democratic candidates’ forum in Pittsburgh Sunday Jan. 28, 2024 (screen capture) Lee replied that it was a subject that elicits pain in multiple communities. “The reality is, is that peace— a just and lasting peace— has to start with centering all of the folks who are impacted, and we have to be incredibly clear that there is no pathway to peace if we can only talk about security for one community, or as we continue to pit communities against each other,” she said. “Peace and justice and liberation and accountability for Israelis is not counter to peace and justice for Palestinians or Muslims or for Arabs.”
She added that “anybody who would use this issue as a political wedge is not serious and does not understand the gravity of the situation.”
The two sparred again on a question about the role and responsibility of the United States in geopolitical conflicts around the world.
Patel said as someone with a degree in international relations she has spent time “navigating these issues and getting a sense of what’s going on.” She noted that Lee had tweeted information that the president doesn’t have the authority to authorize airstrikes in the Red Sea against the Houthi rebels, who have attacked ships in the area and disrupted global commerce.
“When we’re unable to actually take these foreign policy concerns in a serious way, and engage with them in an intellectual way, and we’re just focused on posting, rather than understanding the challenges, I think that it sets us up for challenges,” Patel said. “I think it puts us in a precarious position as a country.”
Lee countered that her preference was to center American diplomacy in global conflicts. “The reality is that while an international studies degree is important, I have a law degree,” she said. “And no, the president does not have the authority to declare war or offensive strikes without the prior authorization of Congress.” Patel attempted to interrupt but Potter admonished her to respect the other candidates’ time.
Despite the best efforts by moderators to prevent delays and interruptions, the audience was fairly vocal throughout the event, alternately applauding or heckling the candidates based on their answers. At one point during a response to a question about the role of Congress in supporting gender-affirming care, MacDonald reacted directly to the audience booing her.
“My opponent — the people who live in her district have no families, they live in squalor, they don’t have…” MacDonald began, before audience members shouted back. “You think you know, right, well guess what, I worked there. I have helped those communities.”
When the heckling had died down, MacDonald added, “I don’t need to take that. My record speaks for itself. I’ve walked the walk, I’ve talked the talk, I help families. I help everybody. I don’t have a prejudiced, white, black, purple, pink bone in my body. I love everybody. And I love all of you too, even if we disagree.”
Laurie MacDonald participates in a Democratic candidates’ forum in Pittsburgh Sunday Jan. 28, 2024 (screen capture) The candidates were asked how they would engage younger voters, and in her response, Patel continued a line of criticism she has levied at Lee before: that she thinks the progressive Democrat does not fully support President Joe Biden’s agenda.
“With the Supreme Court overturning affirmative action, Roe v Wade, it really does come down to unequivocally standing with our president,” Patel said. “We really have zero room for error, and heading into the 2024 general election when we think about the future of this country, when we think about the future of our democracy, it really is all hands on deck, and it’s going to come from Western Pennsylvania. It’s going to be Pennsylvania that drives that conversation and drives that turnout and we need to start taking that seriously.”
Lee said the Democratic coalition of 2024 would include Black and brown voters, young voters and progressive voters, “precisely what Western Pennsylvania looks like,” noting that progressives had won decisive victories in recent elections in that end of the state.
“We actually need people who are going to be bold and push the president— just a little bit— so that we can get to [student] debt cancellation,” Lee said. “We need young people who are going to push the administration on climate change, because we have to meet the scope and the scale of the urgency of the moment. That energy is led by young people.”
PA Democratic Senator John Fetterman on December 6 defended ‘reasonable’ border talks. This follows his staunch support for Israel’s war in Gaza, which has also befuddled some of his typical allies on the left.,(Photo credit: Politico)
“I’m not a progressive. I’m just a regular Democrat.” Fetterman is in the first year of a six-year term. He has time to repair relations with progressives or sever ties altogether. At this point, the latter is rapidly happening anyway.
By Ross Barkan
Political Currents
Dec 21, 2023 – Labels in the American political system have always been slippery. Progressive, liberal, leftist, conservative, hard-right, and hard-left can mean very different things to very different audiences. MAGA, perhaps, offers the most clarity—an unabashed supporter of Donald Trump. But even then, within the vast array of Republicans who back Trump, are disparate political views. Some want a national abortion ban. Some, like Trump himself, don’t quite know what they want.
Others strive to shed labels altogether. Many politicians, for somewhat obvious reasons, embrace them when they’re convenient—rounding up votes in primaries, appealing to activists, and raising cash—and abandoning them once they become a burden. The burden, or perceived burden, arrives when a politician has to campaign in a competitive general election. John Fetterman, the famous senator from Pennsylvania, is deep into his rebrand, and seemingly considering how to position himself when he faces voters again in 2028. His campaign proudly promoted a clip from the 2022 Democratic primary when he told a journalist who asked if he’s a progressive that “no, I’m just a Democrat that has always run on what I believe and know to be true.” Interestingly enough, Fetterman’s social media account doesn’t quote this verbatim. Instead, the post above the clip reads “I’m not a progressive, I’m just a regular Democrat.”
It’s a notable approach from a politician who has caught heat, of late, for his hawkish views on Israel. Fetterman, unlike several other Democratic senators, has not called for a ceasefire or denounced the Israeli military for slaughtering thousands of civilians in Gaza. As pressure has grown on the Biden administration to do more to curb Benjamin Netanyahu’s military ambitions, Fetterman’s rhetoric has been mostly indistinguishable from Mike Johnson or any other conservative Republican. His simultaneous embrace of tougher immigration laws has led NBC News to label him a “maverick” for breaking with progressive Democrats.
Calling Fetterman a maverick is understandable, if inaccurate. A maverick politician—few hardly exist anymore, and John McCain barely qualified—will break with their party on major policy questions. Imagine a Republican who loudly supports abortion rights or a Democrat who denounced the first or second impeachment of Trump. Strengthening the border doesn’t count; Democrats themselves have a range of views on immigration and Biden himself has pushed for more border fencing of late. Fetterman, unlike Trump, has not said immigrants are poisoning the blood of America. That would be one way, in a far darker manner, to become a maverick. And defending Israel at all costs certainly doesn’t qualify. The Democratic Party, these days, might be less hawkish on Israel than the GOP, but staunch Zionists occupy all the leadership posts. There is no daylight between Fetterman and Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, or Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, when it comes to Israel.
But Fetterman is punching left. There’s nothing new to this—see Sister Souljah—and Fetterman might even be earnest. His staff has certainly argued his views on Israel are decades-old, solidified in graduate school. What is more obvious, and helpfully collated on X, is that Fetterman used to happilyidentify as a progressive. He called himself one in 2016, 2018, and 2020. He inched away from the label in 2022, when he became the frontrunner in the Democratic primary for Senate, but never disavowed the movement of left-leaning activists and organizations that backed him earlier in his career. Fetterman ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2016 as a Bernie Sanders supporter and remained close to Sanders when he was elected lieutenant governor in 2018. He benefited from Sanders’ enormous network of online donors in all of his statewide campaigns. He took the Vermont senator’s endorsement multiple times and championed key planks of his platform: a $15 federal minimum wage, Medicare for All, and new wealth taxes. He never identified as a socialist or embraced the more confrontational flavor of leftist politics favored by the Squad, but he was, undeniably, a member of his party’s progressive wing.
It would have been plausible for Fetterman to back a higher minimum wage without calling himself a progressive. “I just want people to make more money and have cheap healthcare” would have been enough. “It’s common-sense,” he might have said, to “make the wealthy pay their fair share. There’s nothing progressive or liberal about that. It’s how we should run a country.” But that would have been less exciting to the donors and activists who were going to power Fetterman’s early campaigns. Fetterman wanted to raise cash and he wanted to win. Hence, the Sanders associations were useful. When Dr. Oz, in the 2022 general election, tried to scare moderate Democrats away, the pivot began. He hasn’t looked back.
If Fetterman were being honest, he could simply declare he is no longer a progressive. He could say he used to be one in 2016 and 2018 and 2020 but he feels differently now. He doesn’t like how progressives talk about Israel or the border or some other hot button issue that might matter to a cross-pressured Pennsylvanian and he’s decided he’s going to operate separately from them. He could say he used to believe in Bernie Sanders and now he’s less sure. But doing that would permanently alienate the activist infrastructure that lifted him to prominence in the first place. Fetterman probably believes this is the safer route: to state, against all available evidence, he was never a progressive. This is dishonest and, in the long run, may not even be good politics. It’s not like Trump, when he was first running for president, ever sought to hide that he used to be a Democrat or pal around with the Clintons. If anything, he used his unscrupulousness to his advantage, boasting about how easy it was for him, as a well-heeled donor, to buy Democrats off. Fetterman needn’t be so venal, but he could acknowledge the past and point the way forward.
Politically, all of this can only matter so much. Fetterman is in the first year of a six-year term. He has time to repair relations with progressives or sever ties altogether. At this point, the latter is rapidly happening anyway. For the Pennsylvania activist class, Fetterman is increasingly persona non grata. Since he also needs to appeal to centrists and Israel-supporting Jews in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh metropolitan areas, he might not care at all. If he does go down this path, though, he’ll have to find a new way to raise cash and wrangle volunteers. There are many young people who showed up to canvass for Fetterman 2022 that will not bother for Fetterman 2028. They’ll have long memories—and other heroes by then.
Dem Governor Josh Shapiro campaigning in Beaver County
By less than 100 voters, but Dems need to get busy with new registrations.
By Chrissy Suttles Beaver County Times
BEAVER — County Republicans hit a milestone decades in the making this week.
Beaver County now has more registered Republican voters than Democrats – an inflection point in a county considered a Democratic stronghold for the better part of a century.
Pennsylvania Department of State data shows that among Beaver County’s 111,725 registered voters, 48,170 are registered Republicans and 48,079 are registered Democrats – a difference of 91 registrations. That’s 43.1% Republican voters, 43% Democratic voters and 13.9% third party or unaffiliated voters.
Beaver County has steadily grown more supportive of Republican candidates and conservative principles in recent years.
As a traditionally blue-collar county once grounded in steel and a unionized workforce, Beaver has long had more registered Democrats than Republicans. A portion of those Democrats started voting Republican in the 1980s for former President Ronald Reagan, but kept their Democratic party affiliation. Still, Beaver County voters supported Democratic presidential candidates for much of the 20th century.
That changed in 2008, when Republican John McCain outperformed former President Barack Obama in the county. In 2012, Mitt Romney bested the former president again. Former President Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton 58% to 39% in 2016 and President Joe Biden 57.9% to 40.3% in 2020 – despite Beaver County holding a clear but shrinking Democratic majority among registrations.
The county marked another clear shift in 2016, when Republicans took the Beaver County Board of Commissioners for the first time since 1958.
Beaver County Republican Chairman Roman Kozak said Tuesday the emergent Republican majority is “validation of the hard work of our Republican elected county team.”
“Ten to 20 years ago, most of us could never imagine this happening,” he said. “From our judiciary to our county commissioners and row offices, and down to our municipal offices and school directors, Republican-led government continues to represent true Beaver County values. The people of Beaver County are telling us they want a government that is responsive to them as well as one that is professionally and responsibly managed.”
Beaver County Democratic Chairwoman Erin Gabriel said the Democratic Party is “always excited to see more folks register to vote, and will continue our efforts to register voters across the county.
“Certainly, there will be ebbs and flows in which party has the majority of registrations in a tightly contested county like Beaver, and the margins really couldn’t be tighter in terms of registration,” she said. “I think that’s part of what makes us such an interesting county for politicos, but it also presents us with the necessary opportunity for bipartisan discussions.”
Gabriel noted Democrat Nate Bible’s win over two-term Republican incumbent David Lozier in this year’s Beaver County District Attorney race and shared enthusiasm for Gov. Josh Shapiro’s automatic voter registration initiative, adding that the party is focused on protecting voters’ rights “instead of trying to make it more difficult to vote,” because “this country works best when more people participate.”
The Democratic party will “continue to be a welcoming, safe and supportive space for all of our community members, regardless of the color of your skin, where you came from, how you worship or who you love,” she added. “In too many cases this year, with significant encouragement from the Republican party, we saw the politics of racism, bigotry and hate on full display through divisive rhetoric, race-baiting mailers coming from both the Republican party as well as directly from their candidates for county offices.”
Spotlight PA | Dec. 12, 2023 – HARRISBURG — In his first year as Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro won praise as a literal bridge builder, signed a state spending plan that included long-sought Democratic priorities, and helped expand a relief program for older homeowners.
The Democrat, a former state lawmaker who touts himself as a dealmaker, has nonetheless struggled at times to advance priorities through Harrisburg’s ideologically divided legislature. His record will depend on how well he can find middle ground, and he will be watched not just here in Pennsylvania but in national political circles as well.
His first major attempt at a deal blew up in his face. Shapiro negotiated a budget with the Republicans who control the state Senate, and according to the GOP, agreed to a package that would have funded private school vouchers with public dollars.
Amid widespread opposition from state House Democrats and organized labor, Shapiro vetoed the provision from the budget, throwing unfinished business into a tailspin and prompting Republican outcry that he had reneged.
“A lot of first-time governors, myself included, make this mistake,” said Ed Rendell, a Democrat who was Pennsylvania’s governor from 2003 to 2011 and has known Shapiro for decades. “We assume that our own party is going to support us, and not buck us on something that’s very important to us.”
“Always count heads,” Rendell said. “I don’t think he’ll make that mistake again.”
Shapiro also had to weather a series of events outside of his control beginning in the early months of his administration.
A little more than two weeks after his inauguration, the governor had to respond to the East Palestine train derailment less than a mile from Pennsylvania’s border, which released thousands of tons of toxic chemicals. And amid budget talks, the sudden collapse of an overpass on I-95, used by tens of thousands of Philadelphia commuters every day, required Shapiro to coordinate a temporary replacement in less than two weeks while under national scrutiny.
“There almost wasn’t a quote-unquote normal,” Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder told Spotlight PA of those early emergencies. “We were still figuring out, you know, where the lights were.”
Other unexpected bumps in the road came from the courts.
About a month into Shapiro’s governorship, Commonwealth Court found that the state’s education system was unconstitutionally underfunded, a ruling that presented Harrisburg with a mandate to take action on a thorny, far-reaching, and politically charged policy issue.
“I wonder if he had unpacked all his clothing before the courts made the ruling,” quipped state Rep. Peter Schweyer (D., Lehigh), who heads his chamber’s Education Committee.
But perhaps the thorniest problems of all came from within Harrisburg.
It will be only the second-ever judicial endorsement for the organization formerly known as NARAL
BY KIM LYONS
Penn-Capitol Star
OCT 6, 2023 – Reproductive Freedom for All, the organization formerly known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, told the Capital-Star on Friday that it is endorsing Judge Daniel McCaffery for Pennsylvania Supreme Court, only its second-ever endorsement in a judicial race.
Republican candidate Carolyn Carluccio, a judge on the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, is running against Democrat McCaffery, a judge on the Pennsylvania Superior Court. The two are vying for the seat left vacant on the state Supreme Court after the death of Justice Max Baer last year.
Reproductive Freedom for All, founded as NARAL in 1969, hasn’t historically been involved in judicial races, but after Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, state judges are now more likely to decide cases involving reproductive rights, which has drawn its attention.
Abortion is legal in Pennsylvania up until 24 weeks, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is currently weighing a case involving Medicaid coverage for abortion, which Reproductive Freedom for All noted in a news release shared Friday morning with the Capital-Star. The group accused Carluccio of scrubbing her website of her anti-abortion stances, and pointed to Carluccio’s endorsement by the PA Pro-Life Federation.
“State courts are the front line in the fight for reproductive freedom, and it’s critical that we elect fair-minded judges who value our fundamental rights,” Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju said. “Our more than 159,000 members in the Commonwealth are ready to mobilize to elect Judge McCaffery.”
Democrats currently have a 4-2 majority on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, and justices serve 10-year terms. Three of the four Democratic justices — Christine Donohue, David N. Wecht, and Kevin M. Dougherty — will be up for reelection when their terms end in 2026.
The current race for the state Supreme Court has drawn significant funding for both candidates, putting it on track to be one of the most expensive judicial elections ever in Pennsylvania. SpotlightPA reported this week that McCaffery has raised $2 million since the beginning of 2023, and Carluccio has raised $3.4 million, of which $2.1 million came from the Commonwealth Leaders Fund, an organization that has received funding from conservative Pennsylvania billionaire Jeffrey Yass.
Earlier this week, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) announced it would make a “six-figure investment” in the race, calling it an election that will have “long-term consequences, not just for the court, but for the state Legislature as well.” Planned Parenthood Votes, the political arm of reproductive rights organization Planned Parenthood, has poured money into a state ad campaign — the largest investment it’s ever made in a state supreme court race. The ads criticized Carluccio’s stance on reproductive rights, also claiming she wiped references to her previous position against abortion from her website.
Carluccio received the Republican Party endorsement in the primary, and is endorsed by the PA Pro-Life Federation and Pro-Life Coalition of Pennsylvania, both of which oppose abortion.
Her campaign spokesperson previously told the Capital-Star that Carluccio was not an activist judge and that her website had undergone a redesign, but that Carluccio would not attempt to legislate from the bench.
The general election in Pennsylvania is Nov. 7. The deadline to register to vote in the election is Oct. 23.
Sept. 19, 2023 – Democrats kept control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Tuesday after winning an open seat in a special election in the Pittsburgh area.
The state’s lower chamber had been split 101-101 between Democrats and Republicans since July, when former Representative Sara Innamorato, a Democrat, stepped down from her seat representing the 21st House District to run for Allegheny County executive.
Republicans had hoped for an upset in Ms. Innamorato’s former district, which includes part of Pittsburgh and its northern suburbs. That did not happen: Lindsay Powell, a Democrat who has strong ties to party leaders in Washington — including Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader — easily defeated Erin Connolly Autenreith, a Republican who is the chairwoman of a local party committee. With 95 percent of the vote counted, 65 percent went to Ms. Powell and 34 percent went to Ms. Autenreith.
Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives has been split between Democrats and Republicans since July, with each party holding 101 seats.Credit…Matt Rourke/Associated Press
Why It Matters: The vote will determine a swing state’s power balance.
Pennsylvania is a crucial swing state, playing an important role in presidential elections, as well as determining which party holds power in the United States Congress. Whichever party gains an upper hand in the state can make a major difference in Washington, in addition to making law in Pennsylvania.
It’s also one of just two states, along with Virginia, where the legislative chambers are split by party.
In Harrisburg, Democrats have controlled the governor’s office since 2015, and Gov. Josh Shapiro won his first term convincingly in November 2022. Republicans, on the other hand, have held a strong grip on the Senate for decades.
Democrats won a majority in the House in 2022 for the first time in 12 years and by the slimmest of margins — it took only Ms. Innamorato’s resignation to make it an even split.
Background: The state has seen several special elections this year.
In May, Heather Boyd, a Democrat, won a closely watched special election in southeast Delaware County, part of the Philadelphia suburbs. Top Democrats, including President Biden and Governor Shapiro, had framed the contest as crucial to protecting reproductive rights in Pennsylvania.
But on the same day, in a separate special election, Republicans retained a state House seat in north-central Pennsylvania with the triumph of Michael Stender, a school board member and firefighter.
Heading into the third special election of the year on Tuesday, the Democratic candidate, Ms. Powell, 32, who works in work force development, was viewed as a solid favorite, with a sizable fund-raising advantage.
She was aiming to become the first African American woman to represent the district, which Ms. Innamorato captured in 2022 with 63 percent of the vote.
Republican officials acknowledged that the heavily Democratic district would be difficult for them to win. Still, Ms. Autenreith, 65, had been active on the campaign trail.
What Happens Next: The state House could soon be in play yet again.
Even with Ms. Powell’s victory, voters in Pennsylvania may soon face yet another special election with huge stakes.
If State Representative John Galloway, a Democrat who represents a district northeast of Philadelphia, prevails in a race for a district judgeship in November, as is expected, the chamber would be split again until another contest could be held to fill his seat.
Republican state Rep. Rob Mercuri announced Tuesday he’ll run against first-term Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio in what may be the state’s most competitive U.S. House race — Pennsylvania’s 17th congressional district. He’s the second Republican veteran to declare his candidacy in this race.
Mercuri currently represents the 28th district in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. who deployed for two tours in Iraq, Mercuri owns a pack-and-ship business in Wexford.
“As a veteran, I know that America is worth fighting for. As a father, I care deeply about our future. As a small business owner, I know that anything is possible here with hard work. I’m running for Congress to help restore the promise of prosperity to our region and to revive the American dream so each one of us has the opportunity to thrive,” Mercuri said in a news release.
His statehouse platform: fiscal responsibility, energy expansion, educational choices and economic development. He’s authored legislation in the areas of education, finance, autonomous transportation, and data privacy.
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Mercuri joins another lesser-known Republican veteran in the race: pastor and retired law enforcement officer Jim Nelson. Nelson is running on what he says is a “common sense” platform with priorities that include school safety, tax reform and economic development. A U.S. Air Force veteran and African American, Nelson says he wants to represent his very diverse district.
The 17th is a swing district that joins Beaver County to a suburban swath of Allegheny County, and its geography encompasses college-educated suburbs as well as working-class industrial and post-industrial communities.
Deluzio is a U.S. Navy veteran and lawyer who has worked as the policy director for a University of Pittsburgh center focused on cyber law and security. Prior to that, he worked in election security for the Brennan Center.
The general election is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024.
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 