Category Archives: Women

2024 Election, African-Americans, Democrats, elections, Fascism, Pittsburgh, Voting Rights, Women, Youth and students

Summer Lee and AOC Rally Pittsburgh College Students To Get Involved In 2024 Election

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By Abigail Hakas

Pennsylvania Capitol-Star

September 22, 2024 – PITTSBURGH — With just 44 days until the 2024 election, U.S. Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) rallied young voters for the Harris-Walz ticket at Carnegie Mellon University on Sunday.

Young people, Lee told the audience “are not the voices of the future,” but rather “the voices of right now.”

“We are all in the most powerful room in the country,” she said. “This is the most powerful room because we are in Western Pennsylvania, we’re in Western Pennsylvania, and the road to the White House, the road to the Senate and the road to the House all leads right here through y’all’s campuses.”

Pennsylvania is key for both Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee. With its 19 electoral votes, the Keystone State is the biggest prize of the “blue wall” battleground states for either candidate.

According to the Pew Research Center, about two-thirds of registered voters ages 18 to 24 align with Democrats. In 2023, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement estimated around 41 million members of Gen Z would be eligible to vote in the 2024 election.

Sunday’s event was co-hosted by College Democrats at Pitt, the CMU College Democrats and the Young Democrats of Allegheny County.

“When I talk about what our job is in the next 40-something days, your job is to take care of each other because that’s who I’m voting for,” Lee said. “I’m going to go and vote for the most marginalized person in my life. Because it’s my job, it’s my responsibility, to make sure that I’m creating the conditions that we all can survive in, not just survive, that we can all thrive in.”

Ocasio-Cortez followed Lee with a list of the issues that young voters might be most concerned with: climate change, school shootings and the cost of rent and healthcare.

“We have been aging and growing in a world that our predecessors have left to us,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Respectfully, a lot of what has been left to us is messed up, is really messed up, and it’s messed up not even on a partisan basis, it’s messed up generationally.”

Ocasio-Cortez told a story of her time at Boston University when Barack Obama began his candidacy, and her absentee ballot did not arrive in time. She said she took a bus back home to New York City to cast her vote for the future president.

She not only encouraged students to register to vote in Pennsylvania with their on-campus address, but also to sign up for a shift with the Harris-Walz campaign, go door-to-door and ensure a Democratic victory at every level in the election.

Those calls-to-action were the theme of the speakers at Sunday’s event, with Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, CMU College Democrats President Avalon Sueiro and Harris-Walz campus organizer Agatha Prairie all taking the stage.

Prairie encouraged attendees to convince five friends to vote and Sueiro said to knock on classmates’ doors and “have those tough conversations” about the stakes of the election.

Gainey took a more somber approach.

“We should all be tired. I’m tired of someone that can stand on the stage in a debate and say to the American people and the world that immigrants that are here in our country eat dogs and cats,” he said in reference to former President Donald Trump’s false claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. “I’m tired of that level of hate.”

Trump’s running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) campaigned in Berks County on Saturday, and mentioned Springfield in his remarks. His job “as the United States Senator representing the people of Ohio is to listen to American citizens and fight for them,” Vance said.

“So our message to Kamala Harris and Democrats is we’re going to keep on complaining about their politics because this is America and we have the right to speak our minds,” he added.

Innamorato pointed out that a satellite voting location at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Oct. 15-17. Satellite locations offer residents the ability to register to vote, request a mail-in ballot, complete and return it in one place.

“A Pennsylvania victory runs through Allegheny County, and it runs through young people,” Innamorato said. “I’m asking for all of you to do what you can, to knock doors, to volunteer, to make phone calls, to talk to your weird cousin, to get your classmates on board, because we got a lot of work to do over the next 44 days.”

2024 Election, Democrats, elections, Organizing, Voting Rights, Women

Harris Campaigns In Johnstown And Wilkes-Barre: ‘Listening As Much As We Are Talking’

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 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)    

By: Patrick Abdalla and Kim Lyons

Penn-Capital Star

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.”

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2024 Election, trade unions, Women

VP Harris Continues Biden Campaign Focus On Courting Union Voters In Philadelphia Visit

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Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the SEIU convention in Philadelphia May 21, 2024

The vice president addressed the SEIU a day after it elected its first Black woman president.


BY JOHN COLE

Penn-Capitol-Star

MAY 21, 2024 – PHILADELPHIA — Vice President Kamala Harris returned to Pennsylvania on Tuesday, continuing the Biden-Harris campaign’s focus on earning the support of labor unions. Harris delivered the keynote address to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) gathering at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

“Since your founding SEIU, you have been on the front lines of every major expansion of rights for the American people,” Harris said.

She spoke to the SEIU a day after the organization elected April Verrett its first Black woman president. “Talk about a phenomenal woman and a powerful fighter for justice and fairness,” Harris said of Verrett. “I know firsthand that April is a leader who is always guided by an uncompromising focus on worker empowerment and their rights.”

Harris reiterated the Biden administration’s defense of Affordable Care Act, which she said they want to strengthen. She blasted former President Donald Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to repeal and replace the healthcare law while he was in office. And she touched on other familiar campaign talking points: noting the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce prescription drug costs and to reduce student debt.

“We have already canceled nearly $160 billion in student loan debt for more than four and a half million Americans,” she said. And, she vowed support for a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

Harris also called out the use of the phrase “unified reich” in a video Trump posted to social media and later deleted.

“This kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming from the former president and it is appalling,” Harris said. “And we’ve got to tell him who we are. And once again it shows that our freedom and our very democracy are at stake.”

Steve Catanese, president of SEIU Local 668, told the Capital-Star that during the convention, attendees heard stories from members about ongoing efforts to form and join unions. He noted that the Biden administration had taken steps to reform the National Labor Relations Board. Harris reiterated the administration’s support for the Protecting the Right to Organize, (PRO) Act on Tuesday which would amend the National Labor Relations Act to make it easier for workers to organize, and stiffen penalties against employers who violate it.

“At least hearing it from the audience, I think the biggest cheer really came up when she talked about making it easier to form and join a union,” Catanese said after the vice president’s remarks.

Competing chants from the audience of “free Palestine” and “four more years” broke out numerous times during Harris’s 20-minute speech.

“There were a lot of workers up there that were clearly excited for the Biden-Harris campaign and chanting favorably about Kamala Harris,” Catanese told the Capital-Star. “There were workers that walked in and had protests in the back and I think their protests came from a place of moral stance of what they think is right.”

The SEIU passed a resolution on Monday during the convention calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Catanese added.

“Many of the workers felt very strongly about that and wanted to express that,” Catanese said. “They have the right to express those opinions and our goal is to make sure that they had the freedom to express that and that the other workers who wanted to express their appreciation for the administration could do that as well.”

He added that workers within the SEIU respect each other. “We live in a robust democracy and their voice should be respected.”

After departing the convention center, Harris made an unannounced stop at Jim’s West for a cheesesteak. She tried to order two cheesesteaks with provolone, according to pool reports, but was persuaded to try one with Whiz. She was joined at Jim’s by state Sen. Vincent Hughes (D-Philadelphia) and U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-2nd District).

Continue reading VP Harris Continues Biden Campaign Focus On Courting Union Voters In Philadelphia Visit →
2023 PA Election, Democrats, Women

Reproductive Freedom for All Announces It Is Supporting McCaffery for PA Supreme Court

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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.

GOP, Harrisburg, Right Wing, Voting Rights, Women

Harrisburg Republicans Are Leveraging Abuse Victims for Political Gain

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House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, speaks to reporters beside a map of three vacant Allegheny County legislative districts that will be the subjects of special elections next year. (Capitol-Star photo by Peter Hall)

 House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, speaks to reporters beside a map of three vacant Allegheny County legislative districts that will be the subjects of special elections next year. (Capitol-Star photo by Peter Hall)

Long-delayed justice for abuse victims has become hostage to the GOP’s partisan attack on voting, abortion rights

By J.J. Abbott

PA Cap[itol-Star

Jan 11, 2023 – Last week, Harrisburg Republicans, who suffered an overwhelming defeat at the ballot box in 2022, celebrated the election of new state House Speaker Mark Rozzi. We’ve learned in the days since that they did so not for Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat, or the hope of finding bipartisan consensus but for their own cynical, purely political reasons. 

Rozzi, nominated and supported by both Republicans and Democrats, ran for speaker to advance his life’s work: creating an opportunity for justice for fellow adult victims of child sexual abuse. GOP leaders calculated, instead, that Rozzi’s election to the speakership would further their own political goal of advancing a series of unrelated constitutional amendments covering partisan policy proposals that failed to garner enough support to become law through the usual channels. 

In 2022, this GOP package included two election changes borne out of the GOP’s 2020 election denialism, a legislative power-grab around regulations, and a complete ban on abortion rights without any exceptions. Then Republicans lost the governor’s race, nearly all competitive federal races, and 12 House seats and their majority in the state House

The amendment allowing victims of childhood sexual abuse an extended window to sue their attackers garnered wide bipartisan support in three previous legislative sessions. However, the GOP, fresh off losing up-and-down the ticket, now seems to be threatening to withhold their support for a final vote unless they leverage it to add their hyper-partisan agenda into the state constitution, effectively holding victims of abuse hostage to conspiracies spun by former President Donald Trump.

To assuage the fears of victims and advocates and try to prevent bitter fights over unrelated policies, Gov. TomWolf – with Rozzi’s backing – called a special session to focus on getting the window to justice on the ballot by the May primary. Some thought this would help avoid partisan fights over elections and abortion amendments that lack the same urgency or consensus. 

Republican leaders were incensed at the prospect of losing this leverage and immediately attacked the governor for calling the special session. Senate Republicans went as far as to say their politically-charged amendments were “equally important” as justice for these victims.

https://www.penncapital-star.com/civil-rights-social-justice/rozzi-to-appoint-working-group-on-legal-relief-for-abuse-survivors-after-special-session-stalls/embed/#?secret=QcbcniXyoa

According to a report by NBC10 in Philadelphia, “​​House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler says there are other, more urgent things they need to prioritize ahead of child sex abuse.”

Seriously? Have they no shame? 

In openly admitting they want to hold justice hostage, GOP leaders justified the need for a special session focused on the most urgent matter: justice for these victims. 

In addition to no moral comparison between their partisan amendments and justice for abuse victims, there is no urgent need or policy rationale for these election and regulation changes other than the political goals of the Republican Party. 

Take elections as one example.

https://www.penncapital-star.com/government-politics/voter-id-audits-regulatory-authority-constitutional-amendments-advance-pa-senate-committee/embed/#?secret=JnS6wH5yCP

Pennsylvania law already requires ID to vote and mandates state-run audits of every election. Voter impersonation almost never happens and audits typically find only small computation errors, if anything at all. So while nearly three-in-four Pennsylvania voters said in 2022 exit polls that they were confident PA had fair elections, GOP leaders continue to push these amendments because Republicans think they will help them win elections.

For years, Pennsylvania’s counties outlined urgently needed election policy updates. Unfortunately, in a similar act of political gamesmanship, those bipartisan, consensus changes also remain victims to GOP hostage-taking.

A much more responsible approach would be to engage in the traditional legislative process of building consensus towards some sort of comprehensive elections reform bill, instead of ramming bad policy into the constitution because you failed to pass it the right way.  

GOP leaders seem ready to force their members to engage in a raw political exercise of derailing and delaying justice for abuse victims over these other amendments.

In 2018, four incumbent Republican senators lost re-election after they voted against a statutory change similar to the proposed constitutional amendment. The GOP’s latest legislating by hostage-taking creates a tough partisan pill for these members to swallow with huge political risks.

This unseemly approach is a reminder of why voters overwhelmingly rejected the GOP last election after decades of their control of Harrisburg lawmaking.

Voters are tired of business as usual in Harrisburg and clearly rejected the GOP’s extreme agenda in 2022. But Republican leaders in Harrisburg prove once again that they don’t care what the voters think. 

J.J. Abbott served as press secretary and deputy press Secretary for Gov. Tom Wolf from 2015 until 2020. He now serves as executive director of Commonwealth Communications, a Pennsylvania progressive communications non-profit. 

2022 Election, Congressional Progressive Caucus, Democrats, elections, PDA, Pittsburgh, Women

Summer Lee, Declaring Victory In Pennsylvania, Puts Dark Money Democrats On Notice

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Summer Lee with Bernie

The United Democracy Project, a super PAC for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, poured millions to defeat Lee in a Pennsylvania House primary. Similar dark money groups have targeted several progressives.

BY ABIGAIL TRACY
Wanity Fair

MAY 19, 2022 – Around seven weeks before Pennsylvania’s primary elections, Summer Lee commanded a lead of 25 points over rival Steve Irwin in the race for Pennsylvania’s 12th District, a blue stronghold encompassing Pittsburgh and its surrounding suburbs. It appeared that Lee, 34, a Black woman and progressive activist who currently serves as a Pennsylvania state representative, would make history.

Then came the outside money. By election day, Democratic groups had dumped more than $2 million into the primary race to defeat Lee—dwarfing the outside money spent attacking Irwin, a mere $2,400. Specifically, the United Democracy Project (UDP)—a political action committee for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—spent $2,025,297 against Lee and $660,317 in support of Irwin, 62, a Pittsburgh lawyer and county Democratic Party organizer. The ads painted Lee as anti-Israel and claimed she was “not a real Democrat,” following a playbook that moderate groups have run against other progressives nationwide, including against Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman.

Lee declared victory on election night, at 12:30 a.m.; as of midday Wednesday, news outlets still hadn’t called an official winner—the race was too tight. Progressive groups and lawmakers including Senator Bernie Sanders congratulated her on the win. Lee declared, “This is the mightiest movement in the land!” Much of Pennsylvania’s Democratic establishment, including the retiring representative Mike Doyle, whose seat Lee and Irwin are after, had thrown their support behind Irwin. “They say a Black woman can’t win. Well, we came together. We can’t be stopped. We have a lot of work ahead of us. When we set out to do this, we believed a better world was possible; now we have to go do it,” Lee said in her remarks early Wednesday morning.

But the efforts to stop Lee are part of a broader trend in Democratic politics, as super PACs with big budgets have sought to prevent progressives—often women of color—from winning races across the country. “It’s really concerning to see the huge influx of outside money flowing into this race and the disingenuous effort to paint a progressive woman of color and the only sitting elected official in the race as an opponent of the Democratic Party,” a senior progressive official in the House told me.

Continue reading Summer Lee, Declaring Victory In Pennsylvania, Puts Dark Money Democrats On Notice →
Congressional Progressive Caucus, Democrats, elections, Pittsburgh, Women

Progressive Caucus Pac Backs Summer Lee In Pennsylvania

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By Hanna Trudo
The Hill

April 4, 2022 – The Congressional Progressive Caucus Pac Is Throwing Its Weight Behind A Democratic Socialist Running For The House In Pennsylvania.

The Political Action Committee Is Endorsing State Rep. Summer Lee In The 12Th Congressional District, The Hill First Reported, Offering A Boost In The Crowded Democratic Primary From Top Lawmakers On The Left.

“The Progressive Caucus Has Been Building Power In Congress To Hold Our Party Accountable To The Needs Of Everyday Working People Across The Country,” Lee Said On Monday About The Endorsement.

“They Led The Movement To Pass President Biden’S Full Agenda And Have Been On The Frontlines Of Expanding Our Labor Movement, Advocating For Medicare For All And A Green New Deal And Putting People Back At The Center Of Our Policy.”

Progressive Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) And Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Who Co-Chair The Pac, Called Lee A “Champion For Union Rights And The Labor Movement, A Leader For Environmental Justice And Strong Advocate For Working Families Across Pennsylvania” In A Joint Statement.

Lee, Who Entered The Five-Candidate Primary In The Fall, Has Already Earned The Support Of Other Major Figures Among The Party’S Left Flank, Including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) And Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). She Is Also Backed By National Progressive And Labor Groups Like The Seiu, Working Families Party, Sunrise Movement, Justice Democrats And The Pro-Female Candidate Organization Emily’S List.

“She Has Led The Progressive Movement In The Pennsylvania State Legislature And Has Built Power For Her Community From The Ground Up – Helping Elect Progressives Up And Down The Ballot,” Pocan, Jayapal And Raskin Said Of Lee.

“We Know She Will Bring This Dedication To Progressive Advocacy And People-Powered Organizing To Congress, And We Are So Proud To Endorse Her In This Campaign.”

Lee Is The Pac’S Latest Endorsement. The Committee Is Seeking To Help Elect Progressive Candidates Into Office — Including By Wading Into Intraparty Primaries — That Share Leaders’ Vision For A Fairer And More Expansive Version Of Government.

2020 Election, Democrats, fair trade, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Solidarity, Women

Trump ‘Sold Out Southwestern Pennsylvania’ With Recent Trade Deal

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Sara Innamorato:  Our Democratic Socialist in Harrisburg  Sticking Up for All of Us.

By Sara Innamorato
Pittsburgh City Paper

Frb 14, 2020 – Everyone who grows up in Pittsburgh can narrate the rise and fall of the steel industry: the mills grew as immigrants arrived to take jobs in the blast furnaces, then the Great Strike occurred where industry titans ordered deadly violence upon workers calling for better wages and working conditions; later, the series of federal trade agreements were created, culminating with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), that sold out the workers and shut down the mills.

Our city’s population declined by half. Our family-sustaining union jobs crumbled, and our neighborhoods with them. But Pittsburghers are tough — we don’t like to complain, we’ve seen worse. And so we persevered and we adapted, and now Pittsburgh is widely seen as a success story. There is a sense of collective pride in our story of resiliency.

But as I knocked on doors during my 2018 bid for office, my neighbors told a more nuanced story. They told me they were working harder, but making less — getting by day-to-day was a stretch. They told me they were worried about their futures and their children’s futures.

The voters I spoke with, like so many of us in Southwestern Pennsylvania, had watched as previous trade agreements, like NAFTA, pushed local jobs overseas and drove down wages for the jobs that remained. People were fed up, and many voted for President Trump because he said he would “never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers.”

I am no supporter of President Trump, but for the sake of the people I represent in Allegheny County, I had hoped this was a promise he would keep. Unfortunately, when he signed the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) on Wednesday, he broke that promise, betrayed those voters, and sold out Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Continue reading Trump ‘Sold Out Southwestern Pennsylvania’ With Recent Trade Deal →

2020 Election, Democrats, Organizing, Women

‘Turn PA Blue’ Is the Monster that Trump Has Awakened in Pennsylvania

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By Maria Panaritis
Philadelphia Inquirer

Feb 15, 2020 – I meet Jamie Perrapato on a sidewalk in Conshohocken. The 48-year-old ex-commercial litigator, wife, mom, and cat owner is in black lycra and battle-ready leather boots — the kind with chunky heels perfect for pounding the pavement as you tell Republican incumbents across Pennsylvania: We are coming for you.

She’s the woman who, when she’d taken my call a few days earlier, had moved onto the ice-cold porch outside her Bala Cynwyd house while hunching over a laptop. I’d asked if everything was OK when I heard emergency sirens. Yep; she was just restlessly looking for a spreadsheet with voter-registration splits in towns where her troops are doing battle this year.

“You look for a Republican in the Southeast,” she’d said in a no-nonsense murmur. “We’re coming.”

This same Formerly Nonpolitical Citizen, in her sardonic rasp of a voice, describes the moderate Republicans she’s helped bounce out of GOP control in recent years as though they were nothing more than outdated G.I. Joe toys: “We picked a lot of the fiscal Republicans up.”

President Trump may be the Teflon beast who gets stronger the more radioactive hits he takes, but look at the Godzilla he’s awakened in Pennsylvania: Women-insurgents like Jamie Perrapato in the formerly saltine-bland suburbs of Philadelphia.

Jamie Perrapato, 48, of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., Executive Director for Turn PA Blue, instructs a volunteer canvassing door-to-door for Democratic electoral candidates in Northeast Philadelphia on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020. TYGER WILLIAMS / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

These are I’m-no-longer-staying-quiet women. And they’ve formed a PAC that is throwing knockout punches.

Continue reading ‘Turn PA Blue’ Is the Monster that Trump Has Awakened in Pennsylvania →

elections, Harrisburg, Women

State Sen. Leach Suspends Run For Congress Amid Sexual Harassment Allegations

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By Jim Melwert

CBS News

Dec 18, 2017 – NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CBS) — State Sen. Daylin Leach will not step down from his seat in the legislature, but he is suspending his run for Congress in the wake of accusations of sexual harassment of staffers.

Leach says he will step back from his congressional campaign to focus on his family and to work with Senate leaders to address the allegations.

He says he will fully cooperate as the allegations are all vetted.

“While I’ve always been a gregarious person, it’s heartbreaking to me that I have put someone in a position that made them feel uncomfortable or disrespected,” Leach said in a statement Monday. “In the future, I will take more care in my words and my actions, and I will make it my top priority to protect those who to speak up to help change the culture around us.”

Leach was seeking the Democratic nomination in next fall’s congressional race for the seat currently held by Pat Meehan.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf called on Leach to resign after the allegations were published and says he does not think that was premature.

“I think Daylin Leach has done a fine job as a senator, but I think we need to make a statement about what kind of society we are and what kind of a commonwealth we are,” said the governor. “I’ve had zero tolerance for this back when I was in the private sector and zero tolerance for it in the executive branch. This is not something that anybody, male or female should be forced to subject himself or herself too in the course of doing a job. It’s wrong.”

But Leach says he plans to keep his seat in the state legislature, adding, “I will continue to do all that I can to advance progressive causes in the Senate and represent my constituents with honor.”