LEFTOVERS: Kanjorski says GOP ‘misleading’ on bank reform, the ‘Real’ Corbett, Sestak’s headline

Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11) continues to be vocal in pushing financial reform from his perch atop a House Financial Services subcommittee. Kanjorski, who has been one of the advocates for measures looking to prevent those “too-big-to-fail” situations, said during a hearing on Lehman Brothers that the bank’s “unscrupulous practices illustrate exactly why the Senate needs to quickly pass—and the Congress needs to swiftly finalize—a Wall Street reform bill.” Later, he took Republicans to task for…

April 20, 2010 at 11:16 pm | Comments (4)

An 11th District PR flap goes (kind of) public

You don’t see this every day.

Campaign aides to Paul Kanjorski and Lou Barletta put out competing statements about Barletta’s first quarter fundraising numbers Thursday, with Kanjorski’s camp charging that Barletta had misled donors and the public and Barletta’s camp firing back that Kanjorski, basically, can’t read.

But it got more interesting after that, when Barletta’s senior political adviser Vince Galko e-mailed Kanjorski’s campaign spokesman Ed Mitchell directly—and cc-ed reporters on the e-mail.

“Ed, I…

April 16, 2010 at 2:22 pm | Comments (5)

Kanjorski has 25 times more campaign cash than primary foe

Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien has been called pO’Brien, a Democrat, raised about $114,000 during the first quarter of 2010, and has raised about $320,000 to date. But he has also spent heavily, and finished the period with just under $47,000 in cash on hand, according to a href="http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00466920/461528/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://query.nictusa.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nictusa.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Fdcdev%2Fforms%2FC00466920%2F461528%2F','his+campaign+finance+report')" target="_blank"his campaign finance report/a./p
pCongressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11), meanwhile, raised about $258,000 during the quarter, spent lightly, and a href="http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00180505/461671/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://query.nictusa.com']);return TrackClick("http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nictusa.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Fdcdev%2Fforms%2FC00180505%2F461671%2F','finished+March+with+more+than+%241.1+million+in+the+bank.')" target="_blank">finished March with more than $1.1 million in the bank.

All told, Kanjorski has about 25 times the campaign cash that O’Brien has in the northeastern Pennsylvania district.

O’Brien made waves by

April 15, 2010 at 3:00 pm | Comments (1)

Barletta says he’s raised more than $300K

Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta said Tuesday that he’s collected more than $300,000 in campaign contributions for his third congressional run in eight years.

Barletta, who is unopposed for the Republican nomination in the 11th District, announced his candidacy in December, even as he still had debt to retire from previous campaigns. He raised about $60,000 in the first few weeks, but the first three months of this year represent his first full fundraising quarter.

The…

April 13, 2010 at 4:23 pm | Comments (4)

Barletta won’t talk much immigration this time

PHILADELPHIA—It was a hard line against illegal immigrants in his town that gave Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta a national profile. And if last week’s discussion at Temple University here was any indication, he can still draw a crowd when he talks on the issue.

But Barletta, a Republican who’s running in the 11th Congressional District for the third time in less than 10 years, knows jobs and the economy are at the forefront of voters’…

April 6, 2010 at 11:05 am | Comments (4)

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)

O’Brien hits Kanjorski over reported appropriations vote

When Pennsylvania’s delegation of congressional Democrats met last week to vote on who would replace the late John Murtha on the powerful Appropriations Committee, they did so by secret ballot. But lawmakers often know which votes they do—or don’t—have lined up, and multiple news reports have indicated that Congressman Paul Kankjorski (D-11) cast the deciding vote for Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-8).

That means he was voting against Congressman Chris Carney (D-10), with whom Kanjorski shares…

March 28, 2010 at 1:36 pm | Comments (14)

Paige drops out of 11th District primary

Republican Chris Paige has withdrawn from the primary in the 11th Congressional District, making Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta the party’s de facto nominee for the third time in the last decade.

Paige, whose candidacy was notable for

March 23, 2010 at 10:00 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 ROUNDUP: Dahlkemper, Paige, Jones in the spotlight (Updated)

We’re still getting a handle on all the ballot challenges out there, and we’ll have expanded coverage of some of the bigger ones.

But in the meantime, here are a few that jumped out at us.

Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper (D-3) appears to be the only incumbent whose spot on the ballot for reelection is being challenged. Mel Marin, a Democrat opposing Dahlkemper in the May primary, filed a petition to keep her off the ballot…

March 17, 2010 at 1:23 pm | Comments (8)