The 3rd Congressional District contenders both became state lawmakers in 2017 and have made their records central to their campaigns.
By Sam Janesch
Philadelphia Inquirer
May 13, 2026 – Nearly a decade ago, Chris Rabb and Sharif Street walked into the Pennsylvania Capitol for the first time as elected officials and quickly staked their ground in different ways.
Street, a lawyer and scion of a powerful political family, went to work introducing bills to make technical changes in areas like election and vandalism laws, to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of cannabis, and to end life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Rabb, who had taken on a local Democratic machine to get to Harrisburg in the first place, put out feelers for legislation that would make lawmakers pay a $100,000 fine if they are convicted of a crime, increase taxes on wealthier Pennsylvanians, and limit police assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the start of President Donald Trump’s first term.
The two Philadelphia Democrats would both go on to have more losses than wins. In a closely divided General Assembly where Republicans have kept unilateral control for six of the last 10 years, relatively few Democratic-led bills cross the finish line.
But as Street and Rabb face off in Tuesday’s tightly contested race to represent the 3rd Congressional District, the candidates’ legislative records — and their distinct governing styles — have become central to their pitches as they pursue one of the most Democratic-leaning seats in the country. (Continued)
PA. Democrats decry Jeffrey Yass spending in judicial races, compare him to Elon Musk | Politics | lancasteronline.com
A coalition of progressive and pro-worker, pro-woman organizations in Pennsylvania did the impossible and radically expanded the amount of voters engaged in a critical, but easily ignored, State Supreme Court race.
By Jeffrey Lichtenstein and Steve Paul
Convergence Magazine
April 28, 2026 – The most important question on the 2025 Pennsylvania general election ballot, retention of State Supreme Court judges, was buried halfway down the back page.
But thanks to a strategic, multipronged coalition effort, voters in this battleground state retained three Democratic justices and kept the Democrats’ five-to-two majority on the court. This win will be critical for protecting reproductive freedom, workers’ rights and environmental regulations, as well as voting rights and fair legislative maps.
In odd-numbered election years, significant numbers of Pennsylvania voters do not vote their entire ballot, a phenomenon typically referred to as roll-off. Ordinarily, as many as 30% of voters will skip offices or questions closer to the end of their ballot that seem less important or recognizable.
But a network of Pennsylvania organizations including One Pennsylvania (One PA), Make The Road PA, Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance and other members of the Working Families Party–with support from our state donor table–brought roll-off down from 30% in 2021 to 2% in this election–the lowest rate ever.
We named villains without flinching
Our coalition used diverse but integrated tactics throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 2025. This included paid, earned and new media alongside door knocking, volunteer organizing, and greeting voters at the polls. We worked to be sure we didn’t flinch from clearly naming villains, and we attempted to bring an organizing approach to every tactic, thinking as much about who is carrying our message and why they care, as much as how well it is polling. We centered working people’s political instincts and prized their established networks of trust.
Our message needed to be clear about what was at stake and who was to blame. And our tactics focused first on winning over leaders of various types who could then carry the message to the communities whose trust they’d already earned. Because we used strategies that sought to move power into regular people’s hands–rather than relying solely on professional consultants and vended programs–we defended a critical bastion in the fight against authoritarianism.
Who and where
The Working Families Party of Pennsylvania is both a movement coalition and a political party, with 10 organizational members, including One PA, who collectively represent 100,000 commonwealth residents. The member organizations include unions and community groups. Their strongest bases are Philadelphia, Allegheny County (home to Pittsburgh), and the Lehigh Valley, but they’re active in several smaller places as well, especially deindustrialized working-class towns and towns with a majority of people of color–which are often the same.
Recognizing that many in our communities get their information from social media, we also launched an effort to organize online content creators…
One PA in particular is rooted in working-class, majority-Black communities in Allegheny, Dauphin, Delaware and Philadelphia Counties. The PA Working Families Party has been active in elections since 2018; our coordination in this election built on collaborations in several previous fights. These include the election and re-election of Philadelphia City Council member Kendra Brooks in 2019 and 2023; the 2021 elections of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey; US Rep. Summer Lee’s win in 2022 and Philadelphia City Council member Nic O’Rourke’s in 2023, and Helen Gym’s run in the 2023 Philadelphia mayoral primary. (Continued)
Town halls have become potent political theater early in Donald Trump’s second term, and Lee told a friendly crowd that Democrats must try different tactics in a “failing democracy.”
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20, 2025, in a town hall meeting. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee made a case for bolder action from elected Democrats at a town hall event Thursday evening, speaking to hundreds of constituents as her party tries to find its footing during the chaotic first months of Donald Trump’s second term as president.
Lee, a second-term Democrat from Swissvale, took questions at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. Constituents asked questions about Trump’s moves to drastically change federal policy on education and housing, potential cuts to Medicaid and Social Security and environmental issues.
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh on March 20, in a town hall event to solicit input and answer questions about the federal government two months into the second administration of President Donald Trump. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
It was a friendly crowd for Lee in the historical heart of Black Pittsburgh, a neighborhood and city that reliably vote overwhelmingly Democratic. The crowd applauded and shouted in agreement at many points throughout Lee’s remarks.
Lee argued that Democrats in Congress largely aren’t doing enough to push back on Trump’s agenda so far, echoing widespread criticism from the party’s rank and file that intensified after Senate Democrats provided votes to pass Trump’s budget measure last week.
Her comments were in response to a question from audience member Veronica Pratt, who said that most elected Democrats “are not meeting the moment.”
“There are a lot of people in Congress,” Lee said, “… who have been there for a very long time. Institutional knowledge is typically very important. But the things that worked for us even two years ago cannot work in a failing democracy. And we are in a failing democracy right now.”
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks to town hall meeting attendees at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
An attendee at a town hall meeting holds a sign while waiting in line outside Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District. U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, held the meeting to hear concerns about changes in the federal government since President Donald Trump’s inauguration two months prior. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
Attendees hold up signs in front of Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District while waiting in line for a town hall meeting with U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, on March 20. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks to town hall meeting attendees at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
An attendee at a town hall meeting holds a sign while waiting in line outside Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District. U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, held the meeting to hear concerns about changes in the federal government since President Donald Trump’s inauguration two months prior. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
In what may have been a veiled reference to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, Lee said “there’s no shame” in elder leaders stepping aside.
“If you’ve served for 40 years, if you’ve served your time and this isn’t the moment you’re willing to fight back … then maybe it’s OK to step aside,” she said.
The gathering was the latest representation of local opposition to the White House, where President Donald Trump has used his first two months back in power to begin a sweeping remaking of the federal government, shut down refugee resettlement and launch a large-scale deportation campaign.
Activist-led protests have occurred on city streets at times since the Jan.
“We’re going to see actions and they’re going to escalate across the country,” Lee said.
Long an unassuming part of American democracy, town hall meetings have gained added significance this year. Republican congressional leadership observed a surge in protests at town halls held by GOP lawmakers, and urged them to stop holding the meetings. Democrats, meanwhile, have seen the open gatherings as opportunities to galvanize opposition to Trump.
Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks at a town hall meeting at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
In sharp contrast to the Trump administration’s focus on removing any references to diversity and multiculturalism from government spaces, Thursday’s town hall began with a rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” commonly referred to as the Black national anthem.
The first question from the audience concerned Trump’s move just hours earlier to attempt to begin shutting down the federal Department of Education via executive order.
Lee predicted dire implications for residents, noting that the federal government provides thousands of dollars per student for Pittsburgh schools and predicting that if that money stops, schools will falter or the cost will be passed onto local property taxpayers.
“If you cut and you gut public education, any child can be left behind,” Lee said. “… What does that mean for the future of America?”
Another audience member asked about the influence of billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the government. Musk was Trump’s biggest campaign backer last year, spending a quarter billion dollars to boost his candidacy and those of other Republicans, and now has a wide-ranging role in shaping White House policy. Musk and the Musk-inspired Department of Government Efficiency have focused on making significant cuts to the federal workforce, sometimes going further than federal judges will allow and leading to lapses in federal services.
Lee railed against the “idiocracy of Elon Musk and those babies he has working for him” and said she would use her seat on the House Oversight Committee to probe his business conflicts of interest.
Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.
At least nine sites in New Brighton — homes, flour mill and church — were safe houses to help runaway slaves escape from Southern states where slavery was legal to free states in the North, and ultimately to Canada.
By Marsha Keefer Beaver County Times
June 9, 2019 – NEW BRIGHTON — New Brighton’s strategic location on the Beaver River and compassion of prominent abolitionists made the borough a natural harbor for fugitive slaves seeking asylum prior to the Civil War.
“It was the hub of the Underground Railroad,” said Odette Lambert, a member and former president of New Brighton Historical Society, who’s spent close to a quarter century researching the town’s clandestine freedom trail.
The organized system depended upon a network of people and safe houses to help runaway slaves escape from Southern states where slavery was legal to free states in the North, and ultimately to Canada.
It’s estimated as many as 100,000 slaves may have fled the South between and 1810 and 1850, according to u-s-history.com.
At least nine sites in New Brighton — homes, flour mill and church — were part of the effort.
What’s fascinating, Odette said, is that “very few safe houses are still in existence in the country” — many of them in disrepair and ultimately demolished — “and our little town of New Brighton is one of the few that still has that many homes in existence.” Continue reading New Brighton was ‘Hub of the Underground Railroad’→
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks to town hall meeting attendees at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
An attendee at a town hall meeting holds a sign while waiting in line outside Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District. U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, held the meeting to hear concerns about changes in the federal government since President Donald Trump’s inauguration two months prior. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
Attendees hold up signs in front of Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District while waiting in line for a town hall meeting with U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, on March 20. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
The organized system depended upon a network of people and safe houses to help runaway slaves escape from Southern states where slavery was legal to free states in the North, and ultimately to Canada.
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 