Lentz gave $2K to felled opponent; has $600K on hand

There’s nothing like some campaign cash to cheer you up after your campaign fizzles.

Democrat Bryan Lentz raised about $40,000 last month, finishing the pre-primary reporting period with $600,000 in cash on hand, according to full story

May 7, 2010 at 3:09 pm | Comments (9)

Judge rules Touey can’t be on ballot, leaving Lentz alone in 7th District

Let the general election begin in the 7th Congressional District.

A state judge ruled Thursday that Democrat E. Teresa Touey had only 992 valid signatures on her nominating petitions, less than the 1,000 required. Commonwealth Court Judge P. Kevin Brobson’s decision kept Touey off the May primary ballot, leaving state Representative Bryan Lentz (D-Delaware) as the only Democrat in the race. He will face former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan in November, and the two have…

April 16, 2010 at 3:06 pm | Comments (14)

Conner drops out of 7th District primary

Environmental lawyer Gail Conner has withdrawn from the Democratic primary in the 7th Congressional District, leaving just one candidate between front-runner Bryan Lentz and the party’s nomination.

When Conner entered the race in November, some party insiders thought her longstanding ties to area churches could make her a formidable candidate. But she never raised any significant amount of money, nor did she build much of a campaign on the ground. Her spot on the ballot…

April 7, 2010 at 12:44 pm | Comments (6)

AFL-CIO backs Pike, others in contested House primaries

The statewide AFL-CIO has made its picks for Congress.

The umbrella labor organization endorsed five candidates in Democratic primaries when its Executive Council met Tuesday. Perhaps most notable was the AFL-CIO’s backing for 6th District hopeful Doug Pike, who is locked in the party’s most competitive House nominating contest against Manan Trivedi. Pike already enjoyed deeper labor support than Trivedi, and despite Trivedi’s recent surge of local party support, the AFL-CIO endorsement effectively puts the…

March 30, 2010 at 2:07 pm | Comments (3)

Touey ‘disgusted’ by Lentz ballot challenge

Democrat E. Teresa Touey wants 7th District primary opponent Bryan Lentz to withdraw the ballot challenge against her, saying the signatures she gathered to get on the ballot are valid and that voters are “angry at both parties for these kinds of tactics.”

“This is the kind of behavior that voters do not want,” Touey said in an interview Monday morning.

After a few days of silence following the challenge filed by supporters of Lentz,…

March 22, 2010 at 9:09 am | Comments (6)

BALLOT CHALLENGE UPDATE: Hearings scheduled, one case closed

While we continue to look into some of the more high-profile ballot challenges, here are some updates.

A petition to keep Republican Jean Craige Pepper of the primary ballot for Lieutenant Governor has already been set aside. We’re still trying to figure out exactly why, but from a quick review of court documents, it looks like the complaint was simply withdrawn. That means a whopping nine Republicans will indeed vie for GOP votes for Lt.…

March 19, 2010 at 6:08 pm | Comments (5)

Ballot challenge, spearheaded by Lentz, alleges widespread fraud in Meehan’s petitions

The nominating petitions that Republican Pat Meehan’s congressional campaign submitted to get on the May primary ballot are so rife with invalid signatures and outright fraud as to warrant keeping the former U.S. Attorney off the ballot, according to a complaint filed in Commonwealth Court.

pIt was unclear Wednesday night when court hearings for any of the challenges would take place./p
pThe complaint, which is being handled by prominent election lawyer Clifford Levine, alleges that an examination of Meehan’s nominating petitions reveals “a wide-ranging and extensive pattern of false and forged entries, entries obtained through deception of Signers, and whole pages of outright forged signatures.” The complaint is the culmination of a several-days long effort by Lentz campaign staffers, during which they pored through Meehan’s nominating petitions and contacted people whose signatures they now believe were forged. Though Lentz cannot personally be the one challenging Meehan’s ballot position—the law requires the challenge come from a registered Republican—his campaign has made no effort to hide its fingerprints on on the complaint./p
p“This challenge will demonstrate that the instances of forgery and fraud in Meehan’s petitions extend far beyond what Meehan and his organization were willing to admit in their confession to the district attorney last week,” Lentz campaign manager Vincent Rongione said./p
pMore than 2,600 signatures have to be ruled void for Meehan to be knocked off the ballot. And while the complaint involves enough signatures that it alleges to be invalid, it references evidence which will only emerge in the discovery process if the case moves forward—making it impossible to fully and independently assess the allegations at this early stage./p
pMeehan’s campaign did not comment directly on the complaint or its substance Wednesday, except to share with reporters a href="http://www.pa2010.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Lentz-Letter_031710.pdf" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.pa2010.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pa2010.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F03%2FLentz-Letter_031710.pdf','a+letter+that+he+sent+to+Lentz')" target="_blank"a letter that he sent to Lentz/a about the matter. In the letter, Meehan lamented that Lentz is picking “petty fights” and playing “gotcha politics.” He dismissed the scope of the complaint’s claims, and challenged Lentz to “do better.”/p
p“In truth, this whole part of the exercise is a charade,” Meehan wrote. “Stop hiding behind your political handlers and loyalists and stand up and make your support for this petty challenge public.”/p
pMeehan also said this his campaign had reviewed Lent’s nominating petitions and found 550 signatures that could be challenged (Lentz’s campaign collected more than 5,000)./p
p“But I chose not to engage in the waste of court resources that your campaign has willingly embraced,” Meehan wrote. “I believe voters deserve better.”/p
pThe complaint is nothing if not wide in scope, claiming to have evidence enough to strike 2,284 signatures simply on their individual merits. The signatures in question, according to the complaint, include ones that, among other things, were illegible; incomplete; belonging to voters not registered in the district; belong to voters not registered as Republicans; or forged entirely by someone else. It further alleges that many of the petitions on which signatures were gathered were circulated by people other than those who signed affidavits confirming they had  witnessed each signature./p
pAll together, it appears to be the most serious ballot challenge to a major candidate this cycle. And unless it completely flops in court, even a loss would seem to have significant political upside for Lentz. Despite its competitiveness, many Democratic leaders and fundraisers are bearish on the race, seeing Meehan and the powerful Republican Party in Delaware County as exceedingly tough to beat in a year trending against the Democrats. A substantive ballot challenge could dent that perception, and energize some in the party to take at least one foot off the sidelines./p
pIt also underscores that the Lentz campaign believes it has one of its strongest arguments against Meehan in seeking to paint him as part of the county GOP machine, a local party with a sway over local politics rivaled by few others in Pennsylvania. It’s an argument that will be especially hard to make against someone like Meehan—a man who can claim credit for putting former state Senator Vince Fumo behind bars, and who oversaw a City Hall probe that ended with guilty pleas or convictions for everyone charged./p
pAnd the complaint could also serve to put the county GOP itself “on trial,” in a manner of speaking. Some of the people the complaint targets for allegations of fraudulent signature collection include party bosses Tom Judge and John McNichol./p
pThe complaint began to emerge about a week ago, when operatives for Lentz learned that a supporter’s wife allegedly had her signature forged on a nominating petition. They began to dig deeper, and soon, Meehan alerted the press that it had asked county District Attorney Mike Green to investigate the matter (empa2010.com/em has yet to determine whether or not it was the Lentz campaign’s actions that directly led to Meehan learning of the problems). In a href="http://www.pa2010.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Green-Letter-3-10-10.pdf" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.pa2010.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pa2010.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F03%2FGreen-Letter-3-10-10.pdf','his+letter+to+Green')" target="_blank">his letter to Green, Meehan acknowledged that petitions circulated by one person contain signatures “that we believe are questionable.” The disclosure got Meehan’s campaign ahead of the story for a…

March 17, 2010 at 11:11 pm | Comments (21)

DelCo Dems back Lentz

The Delaware County Democratic Committee endorsed state Representative Bryan Lentz for Congress in the 7th District Tuesday night, further solidifying Lentz’s status as the party’s overwhelming front-runner three months before the primary.

The Lentz campaign said a roll-vote wasn’t needed, with overwhelming support coming in the form of a standing voice vote. Environmental lawyer Gail Conner and political consultant E. Teresa Touey are both running, but neither have been able to gain much traction in…

February 17, 2010 at 3:00 pm | Comments (8)

Less than $500 for Touey

State Representative Bryan Lentz (D-Delaware) finished 2009 with more than 140 times the campaign cash enjoyed by both of his primary opponents combined.

Newly-filed pa href="http://www.pa2010.com/2010/02/from-leaders-to-rank-and-file-dems-pitch-in-for-lentz/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.pa2010.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pa2010.com%2F2010%2F02%2Ffrom-leaders-to-rank-and-file-dems-pitch-in-for-lentz%2F','Lentz+had+about+%24460%2C000+on+hand')" target="_blank">Lentz had about $460,000 on hand. Democratic leaders already

February 2, 2010 at 1:09 pm | Comments (17)

Candidates court DelCo Dems

MEDIA—Candidates for Governor, Senate and Congress took turns addressing Delaware County Democrats here Sunday night, appearing in a crowded forum that brought Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7) back to his home turf.

A day after he and Senator Arlen Specter both made their cases to liberal activists in Harrisburg, Sestak was back in his district talking up his anti-establishment message.

“We’re not Rendell-ites or Biden-ites,” Sestak said, referring to Specter’s support from the governor and the…

February 1, 2010 at 2:25 pm | Comments (3)