Inquirer.com – Zurich DR

Tag: Republicans

  • With control of Congress on the line, Pa. Republicans head to Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas

    With control of Congress on the line, Pa. Republicans head to Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas

    Key figures in Pennsylvania Republican politics — including the state’s top elected federal GOP official and several lawmakers in the middle of heated reelection campaigns — will participate in their party’s first-of-its-kind midterm convention this week in Dallas.

    The gathering, spurred and heavily promoted by President Donald Trump, arrives as Republicans look to defend their control of Congress this fall amid difficult circumstances. Trump’s approval ratings, including on key issues such as the economy and the war in Iran, have sunk, including in Pennsylvania.

    And Democratic challengers, some of whom have outraised their Republican opponents, have waged aggressive campaigns.

    After Trump successfully won the White House and ushered in a wave of downballot Republican wins just two years ago, the convention — described as “Trump-a-palooza” by Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters — is aimed at energizing the base at a critical time.

    Pennsylvanians, representing a swing state that has been key to Trump’s success in the past, will play a role.

    U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) and a pair of House lawmakers in competitive districts — U.S. Reps. Ryan Mackenzie (R., Lehigh) and Rob Bresnahan (R., Luzerne) — are among the more than 100 scheduled speakers over two days, starting Wednesday.

    Their speaking slots were among the first to be announced. Underscoring the Keystone State’s role in keeping the House Republican majority, only the host state of Texas had more representatives on the initial list of elected officials scheduled to address the crowd.

    The Pennsylvania Republican Party, meanwhile, has orchestrated a “full slate” of 55 delegates and alternate delegates.

    “The Republican Party of Pennsylvania is excited and honored to be a part of the first ever RNC Midterm Convention in Dallas,” spokesperson James Markley said in a statement. “It will be a tremendous opportunity to hear from everyday Americans about how this administration has changed their lives for the better.”

    The state party had not provided the names of the delegates as of Tuesday, though the list is expected to include party activists and other elected officials. State party leaders had encouraged Pennsylvanians to attend the gathering.

    Democrats, who see the president’s lagging approval ratings as a key to their success in the midterms, were quick to blast Pennsylvania Republicans for attending. Their response includes plans to send a small group of House Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean (D., Montgomery), to Dallas to push back against the GOP messaging.

    “While swing seat House Republicans try to hide from their record of raising costs on working families, gutting Medicaid to fund tax breaks for billionaire donors and supporting a reckless war of choice in Iran, House Democrats will be present to hold them accountable,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Democrat in line to become House speaker if his party wins the majority, said in a statement.

    Fitzpatrick skips as other Pa. Republicans take center stage

    Four of Pennsylvania’s 10 Republican-held U.S. House seats are considered key battlegrounds as the GOP looks to maintain its four-seat advantage nationwide.

    Of those, only U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Bucks) has distanced himself from parts of Trump’s agenda and is not planning on attending the convention.

    Mackenzie and Bresnahan, on the other hand, will be among the featured speakers, and U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R., York) will attend.

    Perry, a close Trump ally, has routinely won reelection in a Harrisburg-based district but is running this year against Democrat Janelle Stelson, a former local television anchor who nearly defeated him two years ago.

    Freshmen Mackenzie and Bresnahan were elected to Congress in 2024 after they each defeated incumbent Democrats by less than 2 percentage points. Local, state, and national Democrats have rallied behind their challengers — union leader and retired firefighter Bob Brooks in the Lehigh Valley, and Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti in the district that covers the northeast corner of the state.

    Bresnahan campaign spokesperson Samantha Bullock said the lawmaker was “excited to bring NEPA to the national stage because these are the people driving his work in Washington.”

    Mackenzie, in a statement that referenced his work to bring federal funds to his district and support areas like local healthcare and tax relief, said he was “looking forward to talking to the people of the Lehigh Valley, the Poconos, and the entire nation about these accomplishments, and how we can build on them in the years ahead.”

    Brooks said Mackenzie was “flying to Dallas to kiss the ring of Donald Trump and his party bosses.”

    “This is exactly why people are fed up with a broken Washington that isn’t working for working people,” Brooks said in a statement.

    Mackenzie’s campaign has similarly criticized Brooks for campaigning with national Democrats — calling an event Brooks had with Jeffries in July a sign that “establishment backers” were trying to “bail him out.”

    The convention will feature six hours of programming each night.

    Topics that speakers will highlight include the elements of Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Republicans have rebranded as the Working Families Tax Cuts Act.

    Supporters have applauded the law’s extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and its litany of other features, such as investment accounts for children. Democrats and other critics have pointed to the law’s cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid spending, among other measures.

    The convention speakers will also touch on the president’s enhanced border control measures and his push for election changes such as universal voter ID, according to an outline of the agenda.

    A “candidate showcase” that will highlight “key candidates in target districts” and contrast them with their “extreme” opponents is set for Wednesday night. And an “opposition contrast” to “[deliver] the night’s sharpest partisan case against the extreme liberal Democrats” is slated for Thursday night, according to the agenda.

    Besides Trump, the members of his administration scheduled to speak include Vice President JD Vance, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has engaged in a war of words with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro over the state’s measles outbreak.

    National Republicans have described the convention as a way to energize voters in a tough election year.

    Two years after winning Pennsylvania for the second time in 2024, Trump had an approval rating of 39% and a disapproval rating of 58% among likely voters in the state last month, according to an Inquirer/New York Times/Siena University poll.

    The poll found that 51% of likely voters said they were more likely to vote for a Democrat for Congress and 53% said they would want to see the House flip to Democratic control, though the poll did not ask about specific congressional races.

  • Islamophobia: A 9/11 legacy that refuses to die | Will Bunch Newsletter

    Islamophobia: A 9/11 legacy that refuses to die | Will Bunch Newsletter

    For anyone who noticed I was gone, I’m back. It was a weird two weeks of flex time — half vacation, including jaunts to a couple of Jersey Shore points (see below) and an OG family reunion in the Hudson Valley, and half working on my biggest investigative reporting project in several years. It’s coming very soon. Stay tuned.

    If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here.

    On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, anti-Islamic hate is getting worse

    Amina Barhumi (center), the advocacy and policy lead of the Muslim Civic Coalition, prays with members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations outside the Will County Courthouse in Joliet, Ill., where a jury found defendant Joseph Czuba guilty of murder and hate crime charges in February 2025.Nam Y. Huh

    Friday is the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed 2,977 Americans and their paranoid aftermath — enough years for that grim day to harden as history and to look back on things from that era, like orange-coded terror alerts, as increasingly hazy memories.

    The footprints of the World Trade Center’s twin towers are now a memorial attached to a well-attended museum. Osama bin Laden is dead, and the last U.S. combat troops finally left Afghanistan five years ago. But there is one thing that spiked immediately after the attack and never really went away.

    In fact, anti-Islamic hate is a bigger force in our politics than it ever was. Republicans, desperate to cling to power in an election when all the cards — including another “dumb war” in the Middle East and sky-high gas prices — are stacked against them, are frantically waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 and the Islamophobia it inspired.

    You can see it in Lower Manhattan, where the man who was New York City’s mayor in 2001, Rudy Giuliani, is now saying that the idea of the current mayor — Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim American to hold the post, who was only 9 years old on the morning of the attack — attending the 9/11 memorial ceremony “offends me.” His comments were part of a bigger racist diatribe that somehow tied Mamdani to a Muslim plot aimed at “taking over certain parts of America and certain parts of Europe.”

    You can see it in Michigan, where a wave of anti-Muslim hate has surged after an Islamic doctor and public health expert, Abdul El-Sayed, won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. This includes events like “the Christian Crusader March” organized by the Donald Trump-pardoned Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionist Jack Lang, which flooded the city council of majority-Muslim Dearborn with anti-Islam placards and even a Nazi flag.

    And you can read all about it when a sitting congressman like Tennessee’s Andy Ogles has no problem taking to the cesspool of Elon Musk-owned X last March to write that “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” The fact that the fanatically pro-Trump Ogles lost his GOP primary a couple of months later could have been a warning to his fellow Republicans to dial it back, but few seem to have gotten the memo as Sept. 11, 2026, arrives.

    To be clear, I don’t believe Islamophobia is the only permanent scar from the day the United States was attacked by four planes and their 19 hijackers who were followers of bin Laden’s Islamist brand of extremism. It’s been five years — although it feels like yesterday — since the 20th anniversary of the attacks, when I wrote that the fear and loathing of the 9/11 aftermath hadn’t evaporated but instead metastasized.

    I argued in September 2021 that the “conspiratorial mindset we embraced in the wake of 9/11 — would be turned against nations that had nothing to do with the attacks, against immigrants in general, against legitimate protest, and finally, inevitably, against one another.”

    I could write that exact same column today … so I won’t. The role the attack played in pointing America toward fascism hasn’t changed, but it is striking after five more years that while many overt symptoms of a 9/11 hangover have subsided over the years, the virus of Islamophobia has only grown more persistent.

    Prejudice toward Muslims existed, of course, yet it exploded after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the fourth jetliner that crashed in Shanksville, Pa., in ways both large and small.

    Large: On Sept. 15, 2001, a Dallas-area neo-Nazi killed a Pakistani immigrant working in a convenience store — the same day a Sikh native of India was also murdered at a Mesa, Ariz., gas station by a man who believed the victim was Muslim. Smaller but not insignificant: Islamic schoolchildren from coast to coast were bullied and slurred by classmates who called them “terrorists” or just “Osama.”

    At the highest levels of the U.S. government, there was schizophrenia. Many recall that the president, George W. Bush, visited the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., to insist that U.S. Muslims “love America as much as I do,” had no connection to the foreign extremists, and that “Islam is peace.”

    Less well-remembered is the federal operation that targeted thousands of Muslims and South Asians — especially men under the age of 45 — in the weeks immediately after the attacks. They were detained, interrogated, fingerprinted, or subjected to deportation proceedings.

    In a new piece, the “war on terror” historian Spencer Ackerman chronicled how agents went through a Brooklyn neighborhood known as Little Pakistan, dropping cards under doors with instructions such as: “This is the FBI. This is the INS. This is the NYPD. We need to talk. I have questions. Call me. ASAP.” It’s believed that thousands found the post 9/11-climate so hostile that they left Little Pakistan … and the United States.

    Islamophobia has managed to both persist and change over the last quarter century. Certainly one can’t imagine Trump going to a mosque and acknowledging that Islam is a peaceful religion; the man who entered national politics by calling for — and partially enacting — a “Muslim ban” just last month labeled Democratic candidates in the midterms as “jihadists.” Today, the fish stinks from the head, and those middle-school punks who called their classmates “terrorists” are all grown up and running for office in November.

    To some extent, it’s one step up and one step back for American Muslims. The stunning success of Mamdani, who’s more popular than ever after eight months in City Hall, and the rise of El-Sayed and other mostly progressive young Muslim American politicians is a next chapter of immigrant success that seems to have rattled the ancient U.S. hierarchies around race and religion.

    But mostly it feels like Republicans — seeing that the crowd doesn’t want to hear the new stuff like the Iran war or data centers — have reverted to playing the hits, like railing against “men in women’s sports” in a desperate bid to get an unearned encore.

    That’s pathetic yet predictable, but one thing I find appalling is that a news media that ought to know better keeps going along with this malarkey. That includes grilling every Democrat who appears on TV about what they think about a Turkish American Twitch streamer named Hasan Piker, even as most voters have never heard of Piker while some subjects of these inquisitions have never met him.

    Last week, CBS News — purchased by a pro-Trump billionaire who put the over-her-head conservative opinion writer Bari Weiss in charge — ran one of the most irresponsible pieces of journalism I’ve ever read, implying there was something sinister about El-Sayed’s anodyne early 2020 social media comments that America should take the coronavirus seriously because it had killed (at that time) as many people as died on 9/11. One CBS staffer told the website Status that the dubious hit piece on El-Sayed was “shameful,” adding, “The racism is overt.”

    The staffer was being kind.

    Someday — hopefully in my lifetime — there’ll be a U.S. president who won’t only call Islam a religion of peace, but will also stop dropping bombs on Muslim countries. Until then, demagogues are going to demagogue, but the media needs to be calling out the racists, not empowering them. If we keep giving in to our worst instincts, then — as folks used to say 25 years ago — the terrorists will have won.

    Yo, do this!

    • One reason my two-week hiatus passed so quickly was that I immersed myself (and thus finished too quickly, perhaps) in this month’s riveting audiobook, Housewives of the Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery by the Atlantic writer Kaitlyn Tiffany. The book tells the story of how the majority of Americans came to doubt the Warren Commission’s official story of John F. Kennedy’s 1963 murder in Dallas through the persistence of very average citizens — including the three middle- or nearing-middle-age women of the 1960s at the center of Tiffany’s compelling narrative. This is not “another Kennedy assassination book,” but rather a robust and much-needed tale about regular folks successfully challenging their government to do better that resonates in the Trump era.
    • I did somehow find time to make the short drive (90 minutes from Center City Philadelphia) to Long Branch, N.J., for a Bruce Springsteen pilgrimage centered on a visit to the new and impressive Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music. It was just our luck that our tickets were for the day after the Jersey rock icon stunned fans with a surprise visit there (and also popped on stage that night at Asbury Park’s Stone Pony). But the collection of artifacts — amplified by a film and listening booths, and illuminating not only Springsteen’s 60-year career, but the artists from soul, country, and early rock ‘n’ roll who inspired a legend — is well worth the trip. Augment the day, as we did, with a trip to Asbury Park’s revived boardwalk and a drive-by of Bruce’s childhood homes in nearby Freehold. Bonus: Springsteen’s remarkable “Land of Hope and Dreams” show that wrapped up his 2026 tour at Philadelphia’s Xfinity Mobile Center in May was recorded for a full-length film that begins streaming Wednesday!

    Ask me anything

    Question: Given the current outbreak of measles in Pennsylvania and the start of the school year, how long will it be until the first case of polio is diagnosed? — @mcsween66.bsky.social via Bluesky

    Answer: Hopefully a long time, or never, although polio has not been completely eradicated and there was a case earlier this year in Rockland County, N.Y. (here’s a good explainer of how that happened and what it means). Experts are right to be worried if low U.S. vaccination rates persist. But right now I’m more worried about something else that your question hints at: a stunning lack of information about the measles outbreak in Lancaster County, which seems to have caused two deaths, and which I know much more about from reading an article in the Atlantic than from our public health officials. At the core of this seems to be the politics of a Democratic governor in Josh Shapiro and a Trump-y GOP, including the elected county coroner in Lancaster County as well as in Washington. Public health is way too important to get tangled up in political spin.

    What you’re saying about …

    My question from late August about transgender politics in the November election drew a spirited response from readers, most of whom agree with me that Democrats should openly embrace transgender rights and not either run away or equivocate on the issue. The most passionate response came from Zoë Sparks, a transgender woman, who wrote it would be best for Dems if they “stood up boldly, made it an issue of civil rights, pointed out that history, statistics, science, and medicine are all on our side and MAGA has only fake history, fake statistics, pseudoscience, and quack medicine in their favor …” But Arlene Stach argued that it’s commonsense politics to support keeping transgender athletes who were born with male biology out of women’s sports. She wrote, “If the Democrats think this will win for them, they are mistaken!”

    📮 This week’s question: The passage of Labor Day means it will be Election Day in what will feel like the blink of an eye. Democrats seem all but certain to gain at least the handful of seats needed to retake the House, but the Senate is up for grabs. Do you think Dems will win at least 51 Senate seats, and why? What are the key races? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “a Democratic Senate” in the subject line.

    Backstory on the mysterious masked men of Dover

    Police officers form a line to block protesters near Eastney Beach, in Portsmouth, England, on Sunday.PA

    The myth that nothing ever happens on Labor Day weekend was punctured repeatedly in 2026, including the gruesome Miami crash of a cargo jetliner that killed five people on the ground and an armed man lunging at Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton at a campaign event. But the weekend’s most puzzling and arguably most alarming news was barely covered on American television: the sudden appearance in two British port cities — Dover and Portsmouth — of hundreds of black-clad, right-wing male protesters, their heads covered in balaclavas, there to cause chaos and protest the arrival of migrant boats.

    The mysterious men — eventually tied to a self-proclaimed Christian group called the Patriot Platform, led by a former associate of the anti-Islamic, far-right political activist Tommy Robinson — attempted to block lifeboats carrying migrants from landing, and also tried to blockade their buses once on shore, while snarling local traffic as Dover’s famed white cliffs loomed in the background. The protests were a dramatic public illustration of the rising tide of right-wing reaction — much of it xenophobic rage over refugees — that has increasingly roiled politics in the United Kingdom, posing a threat to the milquetoast, inept Labour government.

    But, in the spirit of the U.K.’s most famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, the real mystery along the British seacoast was the dog that did not bark. Although police did eventually restore order in the two port cities, the authorities were painfully slow to respond to such a large-scale civil disturbance, and few or no arrests were made. That’s in stark contrast to the frequent images over the last year of grandmothers and other peaceful, placard-carrying protesters getting dragged away by British bobbies when protesting for a free Palestine.

    The reaction from the government of new Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham was equally languid. A Burnham spokesperson, pressed by a reporter for a political response, would only call the shocking protests “an operational matter for the police to set out their response to the protests on the ground. So I will leave them to respond to that.” Winston Churchill, who (despite his many flaws) famously promised to fight fascists “on the beaches,” must have been spinning in his grave.

    Speaking of Nazis, the protests and the sudden police embrace of pacifism coincided with a regional victory in a battered former industrial corner of eastern Germany for the extreme right AfD (Alternative for Germany) Party, the unholy heirs to Adolf Hitler’s legacy. This weekend’s echoes of Western Europe’s failed appeasement of the Nazis in the late 1930s are almost as troubling as the thuggish extremism itself. The coddling needs to end, or else we are condemned to repeat the absolute worst of our past.

    What I wrote on this date in 2016

    The protests in South Dakota, led by its Indigenous people, against the Dakota Access oil pipeline that erupted in the late summer of 2016 were a peak moment of 2010s political activism, and a lost cause (the pipeline opened the following year, after Donald Trump became president) that was totally worth fighting for. On this date 10 years ago, I was crusading — also unsuccessfully — for the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS) to drop its roughly $192 million investment in the pipeline owner. I wrote, “Pennsylvania doesn’t have a great track record of environmental leadership — but there’s no reason why that history can’t be altered.”

    Check out the rest: “Money trumps morals when Pa. invests your tax dollars.”

    Recommended Inquirer reading

    • I’ve mentioned it before in this space, but no one has done more to keep the tradition of the great American sports columnist alive than The Inquirer’s Mike Sielski. Last week he published a remarkable — and remarkably timely — deep dive into the case of a then-19-year-old from Pennsylvania Amish country whose addiction to online sports gambling and social isolation led him to make a bomb threat against the U.S. Open tennis tournament. The case was hardly an isolated incident, but the hallmark of an alarming trend: the growing number of threats not just against major sporting events but individual athletes, as more and more people — especially vulnerable young men like the one Sielski chronicles here — get addicted to the ubiquitous, heavily advertised betting sites. The piece is a reminder that great storytelling doesn’t need to be a dying art — but also that in-depth journalism requires time and your support. You provide that — and get some great reads in return — when you subscribe to The Inquirer.

    By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.

  • In a deeply divided nation, remembering a time of unity | Editorial

    In a deeply divided nation, remembering a time of unity | Editorial

    It is as important to remember what happened after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as it is to recall the nearly 3,000 lives lost, dozens of buildings mangled or destroyed, and the millions of prayers said in response to what many believed could never happen to the most powerful nation in the world.

    In the immediate aftermath 25 years ago, this country became unified across income, religious, and racial lines in a manner it had not shown since imperial Japan’s despicable aerial attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. But in both instances, there was shameful xenophobic backlash. The Japanese suffered internment. The anti-Muslim rhetoric and actions continue to this day.

    Just as undeniable was that unity after the attacks — including President George W. Bush’s words that “Islam is peace” — helped blunt prejudice.

    Black people, white people, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Republicans, Democrats, the rich, the poor, citizens and new arrivals — they all saw themselves as Americans on 9/11. We found common ground in using the nightmare that had just occurred as the impetus toward a greater sense of community.

    That spirit of togetherness was a reminder of just how important the word united is in calling our country the United States of America. The 9/11 attacks made it easier to see why we as a nation must not let our differences be exploited by calculating entities looking for ways to weaken our resolve.

    A quarter century later, the U.S. is much different in that respect.

    Mercedes Arias stands by the name of her father, Joseph Amatuccio, on the south pool during the 9/11 memorial ceremony on Sept. 11, 2024.Yuki Iwamura

    Our current leadership prefers sowing seeds of division instead of reaching past political, economic, religious, social, and ethnic distinctions to help Americans of every station and persuasion work together for our common good.

    Instead of trying to unify, this nation’s current leaders decided it was more important to wage war with Iran and argue with our allies. Iran may one day develop a nuclear weapon, they said. Dismissing that Russia and China already have that capability and, unlike militarily feeble Iran, have delivery systems to reach our shores.

    Washington also decided to overthrow Venezuela’s despotic president to seemingly gain control of its oil reserves, and has made threats against Cuba and Greenland. It’s hard to believe the same Donald Trump who is now so eager to use military force once promised that if reelected, “we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace for all.”

    Are we supposed to forget the president said that? Is he playing games with the American public? Is he distracting our attention by waging wars that lack clear goals, abruptly destroying historic settings like the White House Rose Garden, and putting unqualified people in charge of public health, public safety, and national security?

    So much is going on that too little attention has been paid to all the money changing hands amid the clamor.

    President Donald Trump attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in May.Jacquelyn Martin

    Trump’s personal wealth has increased by a staggering $2 billion since he took office, much of it in cryptocurrency holdings. Investors in these schemes have lost about $3 billion as the currencies’ value continues to decrease, but many see their losses as the price to get the president’s ear.

    As Trump continues to be Trump — more engaged with building monuments to himself and posting aggrandizing AI slop on social media — everyday Americans struggle to make ends meet because of his policies. Although the cost of his mindless tariffs and needless war goes beyond the high prices people are paying at the pump and the checkout line, it is emblematic of the president’s complete abandonment of the American people.

    While Trump counts bitcoins, our healthcare system continues to undergo dramatic changes that have allowed insurance companies to acquire hospitals, doctors’ offices, pharmacies, and otherwise take control of this nation’s medical institutions.

    The president’s draconian immigration policies haven’t really solved the problem. There will always be people seeking a better life who will do anything, legal or illegal, to cross the border or stay past their visas’ expiration. That’s because despite its faults — and Trump’s best efforts — the United States remains the land of opportunity, even if dwindling.

    Thirteen United States flags representing the 13 original colonies are seen at Liberty State Park with 1 World Trade Center (bottom left) and the Statue of Liberty (bottom right) in the background, in Jersey City, N.J.Julio Cortez

    America’s problem isn’t immigrants, most of whom have no criminal intent; it’s the lack of an effective system to better manage border crossings and adjudicate the cases of people who may have lived here illegally for years but otherwise committed no crimes.

    Effective immigration reform almost occurred 20 years ago, when the so-called Gang of Eight senators, including now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, supported a bipartisan bill written primarily by Republican John McCain and Democrat Edward Kennedy that would create a 10-year registered provisional immigrant status for eligible illegal residents who paid fines and back taxes to eventually obtain permanent legal residency.

    This country also needs innovative equal opportunity ideas to replace the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs now considered reverse discrimination by federal judges. But instead of addressing that issue, the president and his enablers choose to demonize trans people, crack down on speech they disagree with, and abandon civil rights enforcement — all while embracing economic and tax policies that favor the rich.

    None of these issues will be resolved with leaders who seem to thrive with our nation as divided as it is now.

    It shouldn’t take another 9/11 to bring us closer as Americans. But as we seek a greater sense of community, let’s remember that day and what Todd Beamer was heard saying after he and fellow passengers aboard the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 realized they had no alternative but to forget their differences and act: “Are you ready? OK, let’s roll.”

    It’s time for us to fight together for each other, too.

  • Affordability takes center stage as Shapiro and Garrity craft their economic pitch for Pennsylvania voters

    Affordability takes center stage as Shapiro and Garrity craft their economic pitch for Pennsylvania voters

    Ben Hummer would like to own a house one day in Pittsburgh. He dreams of a two-bedroom, one-bathroom town house where he can live near his job.

    But for now, Hummer, 29, rents his 500-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment, and his monthly rate since he moved in has continued to increase by $50 each year, making the goal seem further out of reach.

    “Anything that could increase the supply and affordability of housing in the Pittsburgh area would be massive,” said Hummer, who works in human resources.

    Like most voters in Pennsylvania, according to a recent poll from The Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Times, and Siena University, the economy and cost-of-living concerns are the most important issues deciding Hummer’s vote in the 2026 governor’s race between incumbent Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and his Republican challenger, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity.

    And as Election Day draws nearer, both campaigns are focusing their messaging on these kitchen table issues.

    (function() { var l = function() { new pym.Parent( ‘nyt-afford__graphic’, ‘https://media.inquirer.com/storage/inquirer/ai2html/nyt-afford/index.html’); }; if(typeof(pym) === ‘undefined’) { var h = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)[0], s = document.createElement(‘script’); s.type = ‘text/javascript’; s.src = ‘https://pym.nprapps.org/pym.v1.min.js’; s.onload = l; h.appendChild(s); } else { l(); } })();

    Two years ago, it was the cost of eggs, gas, and groceries that were top priorities among the electorate in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Voters’ trust in President Donald Trump’s ability to bring down high prices propelled him back to the White House, sending Democrats scrambling to hone an affordability pitch that could land in time for the high-stakes 2026 midterm elections. But in that same time, prices have continued to climb; gas prices have topped $4 per gallon; and tariffs instituted by Trump — who called affordability “a hoax” at a Pennsylvania rally last year — have driven up the cost of every day life. Now both parties are latching on to a focus on affordability.

    As he mounts a reelection campaign, Shapiro — who holds a commanding lead in polls — is highlighting his accomplishments during his first term that his campaign says has given Pennsylvanians more money back through tax cuts and wage increases for childcare workers.

    Meanwhile, Garrity has recently shared her own plan, called “Turnaround PA,” to make living more affordable with an outline of how she’d lower prescription drug costs, reduce property taxes, and aim to cut energy bills to get there. But she’s also closely aligned with Trump, who has endorsed her in the race and has dismal markings from voters on two of their top priorities: the economy and cost of living.

    (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();

    That puts her in a difficult spot to challenge Shapiro, said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

    There’s no easy answer for Republicans to win on economic issues in the midterms, but Zandi said his best advice is to focus on what is in the governor’s control and draft ideas that mitigate the fallout from Trump’s policies.

    Hummer, a Democrat who plans to vote for Shapiro this fall, said he trusts the governor to handle the economy and cost of living issues better. More than half of likely Pennsylvania voters in the Inquirer/New York Times/Siena poll agree.

    Fifty-five percent said Shapiro would do a better job of handling the state’s economy, and 56% said they think Josh Shapiro would do a better job of handling cost-of-living issues.

    “I’m well aware he’s limited in his options to do things, but I would say he’s kept a steady hand on the wheel of the Pennsylvania economy — to the extent that he can,” he said.

    Garrity pitches affordability as Republicans seek to overcome Trump’s ratings

    Among other proposals, Garrity has pitched a “first-time homebuyer assistance initiative,” which could help house seekers like Hummer and would provide qualified buyers 3% mortgage interest rate support from the state.

    She also has proposed cutting taxes by seeking a constitutional amendment that exempts Pennsylvania seniors from paying school property taxes and gives voters the final say over whether to increase property taxes. Her plan would also “reprioritize state spending for property tax relief.”

    State Treasurer and Republican candidate for governor Stacy Garrity holds a rally in Bucks County on Sept. 25, 2025, at the Newtown Sports & Events Center.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    But there’s no free money, Zandi said. “If you’re giving tax cuts over here,” he said, “you’ve got to figure out how to pay for it … and that means you’re cutting spending.”

    Garrity’s plan also would address rural healthcare, and she would “aggressively pursue available federal funding to strengthen rural healthcare.”

    But there’s little money left in the pot after Trump cut government spending in last year’s federal budget. His One Big, Beautiful Bill Act directed a reduction in Medicaid spending by $1 trillion over 10 years, starting after the midterm elections, and rural hospitals and nursing homes are more dependent on federal funds. Additional dollars would likely need to come from Harrisburg.

    For Pennsylvanians like Caitlyn Needham, 28, the consequences of an unexpected medical bill on top of a limited income meant she went without substantial meals for weeks.

    “I have a rabbit, and she had a medical emergency [in November],” she said. “So for two months, the only thing I could afford to eat while paying off those bills was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

    Needham, a cake decorator in Pittsburgh, said she’s always been frugal and saved a little bit of money from each paycheck, but increasing expenses are pushing her budget to the limit. She said she plans to vote for Shapiro this November.

    “Pennsylvanians need a relief valve before things get worse,” she said. “So many people are one bad week away from not being able to keep their housing, or losing their medical coverage, or losing their job because their car broke down and they can’t afford to get service. It’s like everyone is just one accident away from not being able to live.”

    (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();

    Garrity has remained politically loyal to Trump, even as his popularity has sunk among Pennsylvania voters. She has endorsed Trump’s tariffs and supported the war in Iran. That support has remained even as gas prices in July spiked to more than $4 per gallon, up more than $1 since the beginning of the year — and a point Shapiro has repeatedly emphasized.

    “If you’re trying to infer I’m out of line with the president, I don’t think I am,” she said last month during a news conference she held on data centers.

    Will Donald Trump and national Republicans help Stacy Garrity’s campaign from falling flat against Josh Shapiro?

    In a statement, she blasted Shapiro’s handling of the economy, saying he has put a tax burden on families and tied businesses up with unnecessary regulations.

    “Josh Shapiro’s Pennsylvania is simply unaffordable for the commonwealth’s hardworking families,” Garrity said. “He allowed utility and energy costs to skyrocket due to his unwillingness to expand generation capacity and instituting policies that benefit our neighboring states instead of us.”

    Shapiro emphasizes his record is separate from national picture

    Shapiro, the incumbent, is leaning on his record on economic policy.

    According to his campaign, his administration created more than 25,000 jobs during his first term and brought in $41 billion in private-sector investment.

    “Governor Shapiro is fighting for all Pennsylvanians — and he has a track record of creating jobs and economic opportunity, putting money back in Pennsylvanians’ pockets, and standing up to Washington’s reckless, cost-raising policies,” said Samantha Reposa, a spokesperson for the campaign. Garrity, she said, “fully supports the failed economic policies that are raising costs and hurting working families across the commonwealth.”

    Gov. Josh Shapiro addresses the audience during a July 26 rally for congressional candidate Bob Brooks at the United Steelworkers Union Hall in Bethlehem.David Maialetti / Staff Photographer

    His campaign released a Spanish-language digital ad focused on benefits of the Working Pennsylvanians Tax Credit and the Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program, which is targeted toward seniors and people with disabilities.

    “If you’re working, you get to keep more of your money. Up to $800 more, more money in your pocket. And right now, every little bit helps,” a woman in the commercial said in Spanish.

    Ultimately, Zandi said, “it’s very difficult for lawmakers at any level of government to change the picture on affordability, at least any time quickly,” because those issues are due to broader national and international forces.

    There’s also no one-size-fits-all approach for a governor to tackle the costs of education, housing, energy, childcare, elder care, healthcare, and groceries.

    “Each issue that makes up the affordability crisis requires its own set of solutions and efforts, so it feels like a laundry list of policy steps, and it is,” he said. “But that actually is probably the only way to make a difference.”

    For many Pennsylvanians, paychecks feel like simply treading water: By the time all expenses are covered, there’s little money left to save and build toward the future.

    “It just seems that money doesn’t go as far as it used to,” said Thomas Schank, 49, of Scranton. “I’ve gotten raises at work over the last two years, but everything else went up also, so really, no net gain.”

  • Key Pennsylvania races to watch in the midterm elections this November

    Key Pennsylvania races to watch in the midterm elections this November

    In the country’s premier battleground state, Pennsylvania Democrats believe they’re in striking distance of a tidal-wave victories that would dramatically shift the balance of power in both Washington and Harrisburg.

    For the first time in decades, the party could take full control of the legislature. That would give Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro — seeking reelection with a wide polling gap on his Republican challenger Stacy Garrity — significantly more power to shape the direction of the state as he potentially pursues a White House bid in 2028.

    Democrats also see a chance to flip four congressional seats and take control of the U.S. House. Republicans, meanwhile, are prioritizing defending the Pennsylvania seats with their House majority on the line as President Donald Trump, who won the state just two years ago, sinks in popularity.

    The path for power in Washington in the high-stakes midterms runs through Pennsylvania and its results will be closely watched as both parties prepare for a presidential race in two years when the state promises to play a pivotal role.

    Voters across Pennsylvania will head to the polls in November to cast their ballots for races that will decide the balance of power in the state and nation.

    Here are the races to watch and how to vote.

    Shapiro’s November could dictate his 2028

    Shapiro, widely viewed as a likely contender for the 2028 presidency, has big ambitions this fall when he’ll stand for reelection against Garrity, the state’s treasurer.

    More than just securing his own reelection, Shapiro hopes to run up the margin and carry downballot Democrats across the finish line.

    Another double-digits win and a string of coattail victories would be a show of strength about his ability to perform in a key swing state that his party lost in the last presidential election. In a presidential primary, Shapiro could use that result to make an argument that he’s a strong general election candidate who can boost the Democratic brand.

    Two months out from the election, all signs point to a Shapiro win. He holds a historically large campaign war chest and a commanding 55-39% lead in the race against Garrity, according to a recent Philadelphia Inquirer/New York Times/Siena University poll.

    Garrity, who has been endorsed by Trump, broke the record in 2024 for the most number of votes received by a candidate running for state-level office in Pennsylvania. But support from the national GOP establishment has been limited, and as she faces off against a formidable incumbent, the question is: Can she overcome her stark cash disadvantage and low name recognition to become the state’s first female governor?

    Will Republicans hold on in competitive congressional seats?

    There are four U.S. House districts in the eastern portion of Pennsylvania, targeted by both parties as must wins. In each, the Republican incumbents are seeking to fend off highly financed challengers amid deep frustration among voters with the leader of their party that could translate into a wave of Democratic victories down ballot.

    1st Congressional District: Five-term Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick faces a challenge from Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie in the district, which covers all of Bucks County and a portion of Montgomery. Fitzpatrick, a moderate who has survived previous blue waves, has maintained a fundraising advantage on Harvie unlike the other swing-district incumbents.

    7th Congressional District: Freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie narrowly flipped the Lehigh Valley district two years ago and is widely seen as one of most vulnerable incumbents in Congress. He’s facing a challenge Democrat Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter and union leader whose blue-collar campaign has attracted support across the party’s ideological spectrum with endorsements from Shapiro and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

    8th Congressional District: Freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan ousted a six-term incumbent in this district centered in former President Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton two years ago. But as he faces a tough challenge from Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, Bresnahan has faced scrutiny over his stock trades and his vote to cut Medicaid — to pay for Trump’s tax cuts — despite a promise to protect the program.

    10th Congressional District: Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a close ally of Trump, faces a November rematch against Democrat Janelle Stelson, a former TV anchor, in the Harrisburg area district. Stelson has consistently outraised Perry after narrowly losing in 2024.

    In addition to these four races both national parties have targeted, Shapiro has argued that the 9th Congressional District, where Democrat Rachel Wallace is taking on incumbent GOP U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, is flippable — despite the strong GOP lean in the district, which stretches from Berks County to the New York state border. The district is home to two warehouses that ICE was planning to convert into detention centers before abandoning the plan after a backlash from residents.

    Will Democrats flip the Pennsylvania Senate?

    In Harrisburg, Democrats hold an extremely narrow majority in the state House, but the Pennsylvania state Senate has been under Republican control for more than 30 years.

    This year, Shapiro wants to flip the chamber and win a trifecta to push forward his key priorities, such as codifying abortion access, raising the state’s minimum wage, and increasing funding for transit.

    Republicans currently hold 27 of the chamber’s 50 seats. Democrats, who currently hold 23 seats, need to win at least two additional seats and the governor’s office to win control of the chamber with the lieutenant governor as a tiebreaking vote.

    The seats, drawn advantageously for Republicans, have been stubbornly resistant to political change for decades.

    But this year a blue wave could usher in Democratic pickups in Philadelphia suburbs and the Lehigh Valley.

    Races to watch include:

    • Bucks County’s 6th District, where Republican incumbent State Sen. Frank Farry faces a challenge from Democrat Eileen Hartnett Albillar.
    • Montgomery County’s 24th District, where incumbent Republican State Sen. Tracy Pennycuick is up for reelection against Democrat Chris Thomas.
    • Bucks and Lehigh County’s 16th District, which will see a rematch race between incumbent Republican State Sen. Jarrett Coleman and Democrat Mark Pinsley, the Lehigh County controller.

    What are the important dates to know?

    Election Day is Nov. 3.

    The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 19. You must be at least 18 years old, a resident of Pennsylvania and a citizen of the United States to vote. You can register online, by mail, at your county elections office, or at one of several other government buildings.

    You can check your voter registration on the Department of State’s website.

    Pennsylvanians can vote by mail with no excuse required. To apply, fill out an application by mail, online, or in-person and send it into your county election office. Applications must be received by Oct. 27 at 5 p.m. and the completed mail ballot must be received — not just postmarked — by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

    An application and mail ballot can be completed in one visit at an election office, essentially functioning as early voting.

    Staff writer Fallon Roth contributed to this article.

  • Philadelphia’s police union endorses Gov. Josh Shapiro for his reelection bid

    Philadelphia’s police union endorses Gov. Josh Shapiro for his reelection bid

    Philadelphia’s police union on Tuesday endorsed Gov. Josh Shapiro’s reelection bid, announcing its continued support for the first-term Democratic governor while touting his commitment to law enforcement.

    “Every day, he has shown a commendable ability to work with local law enforcement and deliver the resources and support we need to protect and serve our friends, families, and neighbors,” said Roosevelt L. Poplar, president of the Fraternal Order of the Police Lodge 5, which represents over 14,000 active and retired Philadelphia police officers and sheriff’s deputies.

    In a statement, Shapiro said he was “honored” by the endorsement.

    “I’m going to keep fighting for the brave law enforcement officers who work to keep Philadelphia safe every single day,” he said. “I believe all Pennsylvanians deserve to be safe and feel safe in their communities — and we have focused every day on funding law enforcement and supporting the men and women that protect and serve our Commonwealth.”

    It marks the second time the police union has embraced Shapiro for governor after endorsing him in 2022 over Republican candidate Doug Mastriano, who the then-president of the union said couldn’t be trusted to protect their collective bargaining rights. Shapiro, a former state attorney general, was a reliable government official who the union said was “there to help us with whatever we need to do.”

    This election cycle, Shapiro holds a commanding lead over his Republican opponent, Treasurer Stacy Garrity, according to a recent poll from The Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Times, and Siena University. The union has previously supported President Donald Trump, but Shapiro attracted its backing over Garrity, who Trump has endorsed in the Pennsylvania governor’s race.

    Shapiro has also received support from other organized labor unions, including the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association. On Monday, he received the backing of the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association.

    Shapiro has maintained a comfortable relationship with law enforcement, and his campaign noted that he has signed multiple state budgets funding 2,000 additional officers across Pennsylvania and allocated more than $1 billion in community-based violence prevention grants.

    Roosevelt Poplar, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, on Jan. 26, 2024.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer

    In his statement, Poplar also commended Shapiro for providing funding for police department needs.

    “The Governor has delivered on his promise to invest in public safety, he has shown up with us in times of tragedy, and he has proven his commitment to keeping our officers and the communities we serve safe,” he said.

    The police union’s endorsement of Shapiro is notable for an organization that just a few years ago was seen by some Philadelphia Democrats as politically toxic.

    In the aftermath of the 2020 Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, protests by racial justice activists swelled in Philadelphia and across the country with many of the movement’s participants calling to “defund” or abolish the police. They pressed local lawmakers to redirect police funding to social services, and Philadelphia City Council in June 2020 canceled a planned increase to the Philadelphia police budget.

    Amid the calls for reform, the FOP was a major point of contention, as was its bombastic former leader, John McNesby. Activists — and many of their allies in elected office — said the union was too resistant to change and protected bad cops.

    Former FOP president John McNesby holds a news conference on Oct. 19, 2022.Joe Lamberti

    At the time, Shapiro was running for reelection as the state attorney general, and his campaign presented him as a “progressive reformer” who had established a unit in his office to review criminal convictions that may have been unfairly applied and a council to support people leaving prison with housing and employment opportunities. The FOP endorsed Shapiro’s 2016 and backed his 2020 campaign for attorney general.

    Unlike some Philadelphia Democrats, Shapiro — who has rumored ambitions for a presidential run in 2028 — did not embrace the “defund” movement. He argued during a 2020 trip to Philadelphia that addressing structural inequities in the department and having strong law enforcement, especially in communities with high levels of poverty, were not mutually exclusive endeavors.

    “We reject that poverty or institutionalized indifference and marginalization should mean that some people don’t get to have a safe community to live in,” he said. “We won’t give up on the belief [of] law enforcement showing up in a community to make people feel safer.”

    Gov. Josh Shapiro with Pennsylvania State Police Col. Christopher L. Paris. They were attending the funeral for Philadelphia police officer Jaime Roman at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul on Sept. 19, 2024.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    In the years following 2020, public support for police in Philadelphia appeared to grow. The city saw a historic spike in gun violence, and Republicans nationally portrayed Democrats as soft-on-crime. When a half-dozen Democrats were fighting for the mayoral nomination in 2023, polling showed that most voters saw public safety as the No. 1 issue driving the race. None of the candidates embraced “defund,” and most of them supported proposals to provide additional resources to the police department as it sought to solve shootings.

    In the end, the tough-on-crime mayoral candidate — then-City Councilmember Cherelle L. Parker — won decisively.

  • Trump’s oil deal with Venezuela is an imperialistic pipe dream | Editorial

    Trump’s oil deal with Venezuela is an imperialistic pipe dream | Editorial

    As a businessman, Donald Trump often cut corners, broke promises, and made bad deals. Now that he has the power of the U.S. government at his disposal, the submission of Republicans in Congress, and a pliant U.S. Supreme Court, the only difference is the scale of the abuse, corruption, and foolishness he brings to his ventures.

    Late Friday, the president announced on Truth Social that he had reached an agreement with Venezuela to secure more than 65 billion barrels of oil. “This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future,” he wrote.

    The deal, such as it is, is, in fact, very significant, as total proven U.S. reserves are about 81 billion barrels. But the rest of Trump’s claims, and the agreement itself, should be buried under caveats.

    Trump noted that this comes “at no expense to the American taxpayer.” This is true unless you count the roughly $5 billion the U.S. has spent on military operations around Venezuela since August of 2025, including extrajudicial killings at sea and the illegal invasion that ended with the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on Jan. 3.

    Trump’s Supreme Court is still helping him try to steal elections | Editorial

    There is also the incalculable reputational cost as the United States’ revived imperialistic push into Latin America mirrors the president’s transactional nature and authoritarian bent.

    The deal was reached with the unelected Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, who took office after Maduro was taken. Never mind that she was part of the same repressive socialist regime that is accused of rampant corruption and human rights abuses; she has proved a lot more willing to work with the Trump administration than her predecessor.

    Venezuelans protest against President Donald Trump’s deal giving the United States a stake in Venezuela’s oil reserves in Caracas, Saturday.Pedro Mattey

    Reports out of Venezuela find some people are hopeful U.S. investment will benefit the nation, yet under a government rife with cronyism, only a select few will likely reap any reward. Although details are still scarce, the agreement already sees the U.S. partner with a private company run by Alejandro Betancourt, an ally of Rodríguez, who has been under investigation by prosecutors in Zurich.

    Trump’s assertion that gas prices will drop thanks to this deal is delusional, at least any time soon, as it would take years for this Venezuelan oil to have any impact on costs at the pump.

    And that’s if the deal comes to fruition at all. The risks, at home and abroad, are significant.

    Trump’s tariffs prove even Canada can’t afford to be nice to the United States anymore | Editorial

    The agreement would reportedly give Betancourt’s company access to 17 oil fields that are said to contain 65 billion barrels of oil. Development would cost billions of dollars and could take more than a decade. The Pentagon would finance the plan, but the legality of its participation is in question — as well as how the deal was crafted in the first place — meaning court challenges may be inevitable.

    There are also political realities to contend with.

    With Maduro gone and Trump threatening use of force, the Venezuelan government changed its position on working with the U.S. overnight. That could change just as quickly once Trump leaves office and if the new occupant of the White House has different priorities or if the current government of Venezuela is replaced and decides to honor the country’s 1999 constitution, which states that oil reserves belong to the nation and cannot be sold.

    The high investment cost and political volatility are why U.S. oil companies have been reticent to enter Venezuela, even under pressure from Trump. According to the Wall Street Journal, Exxon and other energy interests are in talks to expand operations there, which is the prerogative of any private company that is willing to roll the dice on long-term investment, but should be far from the purview of the U.S. government and its taxpayers.

    Trump’s half-baked oil agreement in Venezuela tramples that country’s sovereignty, benefits corrupt interests, and will likely fail to deliver for the American people. The art of the deal strikes again.

  • Pa. must institute statutory protection for the right to contraception and fertility treatment

    Pa. must institute statutory protection for the right to contraception and fertility treatment

    Sixty-one years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Griswold v. Connecticut — striking down a state law that banned married couples from using contraception. The court recognized what should have been obvious: that the most intimate decisions people make about their bodies, their families, and their futures belong to them, not to the government. That ruling established the constitutional right to privacy, and laid the foundation for modern reproductive healthcare.

    Today, those rights are not as secure as they once seemed.

    The political landscape has shifted. Forces that once operated at the margins of American politics are now driving policy — and contraception is squarely in their sights, along with access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and even vaccines.

    Lab staff prepare small petri dishes, each holding several 1- to 7-day-old embryos, for cells to be extracted from each embryo to test for viability, at the Aspire Houston Fertility Institute in vitro fertilization lab in 2024 in Houston.Michael Wyke

    The legal landscape has also shifted, with the Supreme Court a standout case in point when it issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and took away women’s hard-fought right to abortion care.

    In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas went even further in his endeavor to strip women of their bodily autonomy. He wrote that the court should “reconsider” earlier rulings, specifically naming Griswold. The right to contraception has been settled law for more than half a century, and this was not an offhand comment. It was a sitting Supreme Court justice signaling that, in his view, the constitutional protection for birth control could be reconsidered next.

    Those of us in Harrisburg cannot wait for that to happen.

    That is why I introduced legislation to ensure everyone in Pennsylvania has a clear statutory protection to the right to contraception and fertility treatment, no matter what the Supreme Court does. If Washington will not protect this right, Pennsylvania will.

    The same constitutional principles Griswold recognized — privacy, autonomy, and freedom from government interference in personal medical decisions — deserve protection under state law, so no court ruling can strip them from Pennsylvanians overnight.

    We have already seen how quickly long-established rights can disappear. We watched Roe v. Wade fall in Dobbs. We have seen misinformation about birth control spread — false claims that common forms of contraception are abortifacients — designed to create legal grounds to restrict them.

    The attacks on reproductive freedom are systematic, and they are escalating.

    Contraception and fertility treatment are a part of everyday life for millions of Americans. People use birth control to plan their families, pursue their education and careers, and manage health conditions like endometriosis and polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS). These are deeply personal decisions that belong to individuals and their doctors — not politicians.

    Supporters of abortion access listen to Democratic State Rep. Mary Jo Daley speak in 2022 in Harrisburg.Mark Pynes | pennlive.com / AP

    The public understands that. Americans overwhelmingly support the right to contraception, including strong majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

    Yet, there remains a gap between what the public supports and what some lawmakers set out to personally and politically accomplish. That is why action by states matters.

    The lesson of Dobbs is that rights cannot be taken for granted.

    Pennsylvania has an opportunity to act before another right comes under attack. The question is not whether contraception and fertility treatments deserve protection. The question is whether we are willing to protect them.

    I am. And I hope my colleagues are, too.

    State Rep. Mary Jo Daley (D., Montgomery) represents the 148th Legislative District. She is cochair of the Pennsylvania Women’s Health Caucus.

  • The U.S. Supreme Court removed limits on political parties coordinating with candidates. What does that mean for Philly’s elections?

    The U.S. Supreme Court removed limits on political parties coordinating with candidates. What does that mean for Philly’s elections?

    The U.S. Supreme Court this summer overturned limits on how much money political parties can spend in coordination with their chosen candidates — the latest in a series of decisions by the conservative majority that have unleashed a flood of money into national politics.

    How that will play out in Philadelphia remains to be seen. But local elections lawyers said last week it could boost the power of the city’s political parties to influence the outcome of elections.

    “It will be disruptive to city elections,” Adam Bonin, a Philadelphia-based Democratic elections attorney, said of the case, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission. “It will give parties more power, and it will give incumbents more power.”

    The Philadelphia Board of Ethics, which enforces the city’s campaign finance rules, plans to consider the potential impacts of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling this fall, said board chair Ellen Mattleman Kaplan. That would ensure any changes would take effect before next year’s municipal elections, when Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and all 17 Council members are up for reelection.

    Three Philly City Council districts emerge as key battlegrounds in the 2027 election

    In deep-blue Philadelphia, where most local elections are effectively decided by Democratic primaries, two key questions will determine the case’s impact: Does the ruling apply to local elections, and does it apply to primaries?

    Both are legally thorny issues that could require lengthy court battles to sort out. But if the answer to both questions ends up being yes, the NRSC ruling has the potential to give significant advantages to candidates who are endorsed by the Democratic City Committee.

    For instance, in crowded Democratic primaries for mayor or City Council, the party-endorsed candidates would be the only ones who could effectively circumvent the city’s limits on the size of political donations — currently $3,700 per year for individual donors — by directing deep-pocketed supporters to give additional money to the party, which is not subject to those limits.

    The party could then work directly with its endorsed candidates on how to spend that money, including decisions on the messaging and timing of TV ads or door-knocking efforts.

    To be clear, experts said, there are many uncertainties about how, and even if, the ruling would apply to Philadelphia municipal elections, where political money is more tightly regulated than in state and federal races. In the immediate future, the ethics board could take the position that the ruling applies only to federal races, not the city races it regulates.

    “We haven’t come to any conclusions yet,” said J. Shane Creamer Jr., the ethics board’s executive director. “We’ve got to keep in mind that the federal law in that case is a little different than Philadelphia’s laws, including different rules designed to prevent circumvention of contribution limits.”

    Additionally, the Supreme Court opinion did not specify whether its ruling applies to local elections, a question that could be addressed by subsequent federal court cases. The NRSC case before the justices centered on limits on coordination between parties and candidates in federal law that apply only to general elections.

    But Philadelphia elections lawyer Kevin Greenberg said the underlying philosophy in the decision — that limiting political parties’ coordination with their candidates constituted a violation of the constitutional right to free speech — would likely extend to primary elections.

    “There is nothing about the Supreme Court’s logic that inherently applies only to general elections,” said Greenberg, who has done legal work for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. “What any judge and any lawyer thinking about how to implement this … would and should do is apply the Supreme Court’s opinion to what the next set of facts are, and under the Philadelphia law, this will be problematic for the existing [campaign finance] statue.”

    The ruling directly applies to general elections for U.S. House and Senate races, meaning that federal party committees can now coordinate with — and spend freely on behalf of — candidates running for Philly congressional seats and Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seats.

    But the two outstanding questions, about local elections and primaries, would likely have to be sorted out in court because the city is unlikely to voluntarily change its system, said Matthew Haverstick, a Philadelphia elections lawyer who often works with Republican clients. Such a case would require a candidate or, more likely, a political party suing the city, he said.

    “Given the way the Philly ethics board and the city regulates elections, they’re not going to do anything unless they’re told to do it by a court,” Haverstick said. “Whether this decision has a direct impact on the Philadelphia rule is unclear. … You could argue that political parties can coordinate in primaries — there are good arguments that it could — but it would have to be considered in court.”

    Haverstick is representing 2023 mayoral candidate Jeff Brown in a lawsuit against the ethics board. During that campaign, the ethics board alleged that a super PAC backing Brown coordinated with him in violation of campaign finance rules. A judge later threw out the case.

    With Haverstick as their attorney, Brown and the PAC have since sued the ethics board, alleging in part that it unfairly targeted him during the campaign. The Commonwealth Court in March ruled against Brown and the PAC. They have appealed the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, where it is pending.

    A potential opportunity for Philly’s Democratic establishment

    The local Democratic establishment’s influence in recent years has been waning as insurgent candidates backed by progressive groups have notched key victories, oftentimes with the backing of deep-pocketed outside spending groups supported by organized labor.

    Depending on how it is applied, the court’s decision could create an opportunity for the Democratic City Committee to reassert itself by giving its preferred candidates, who are typically more centrist or conservative Democrats, access to a major financial advantage over their rivals.

    The Democratic City Committee did not respond to a request for comment.

    Currently, candidates for city offices are subject to strict limits on the size of donations they can collect: $3,700 per year for individual donors, and $14,800 for organizations. Outside groups known as super PACs can raise money in unlimited amounts — but they are prohibited from coordinating with campaigns over fundraising, strategy, and spending.

    If applied to city elections, the ruling could create an exception to those rules for one type of outside group — political parties — allowing them to raise money in unlimited amounts and spend as much as they want while working hand in glove with their endorsed candidates. And in a primary election, where there is only one party involved, that could give the establishment-backed candidate a major advantage.

    Chairman of the Democratic City Committee, former U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, at Mother Bethel AME Church Nov. 2, 2025.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    But there is reason to doubt that scenario will become the norm in high-profile Philadelphia elections. In addition to legal questions about the NRSC case’s applicability, there are political obstacles that could prevent candidates from taking advantage of the court’s ruling.

    To be endorsed by the city committee, candidates must receive the support of a majority of the 69 Democratic ward leaders, who often fail to reach that level of consensus in crowded races. And even if a candidate wins the endorsement, there is no guarantee they would have the donor network to be able to take full advantage of coordinating fundraising with the party.

    Lastly, the party may differ with a candidate’s campaign on strategy decisions, or it could decline to raise money beyond the limits applicable to other candidates to avoid the appearance of tipping the scales.

    Bonin said he opposes the current Supreme Court’s campaign finance rulings, such as the 2010 Citizens United decision that helped usher in the dominance of super PACs. But in light of those rulings, he said, the NRSC decision may be a positive development.

    “If we’re going to live in a world where super PACs exist, we are better off strengthening political parties, which are more accountable,” he said.

    A new twist in Council election races for the GOP and Working Families Party?

    There is another arena in which the decision could have a major impact in Philadelphia: the general election races for the two seats on City Council that are reserved for independent or minority-party candidates.

    Republicans held those seats for about 70 years until Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke of the progressive Working Families Party won them in the two most recent city election cycles, a major factor in Council’s recent shift to the left.

    At left is Kendra Brooks speaking with colleague Nicholas O’Rourke during caucus session. Philadelphia City Council gathered today for the budget address from Mayor Cherelle L. Parker in chambers, Thursday, March 12, 2026. .Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    The Philly GOP has seen anemic fundraising levels and dismal results in recent years. If applied to local primaries, the NRSC ruling could potentially help the party gain traction with the help of just a handful of major donors — especially given that it is less clear the Working Families Party, without a primary election, would be able to take advantage of the change.

    If the NRSC ruling is applied to city elections, the Philly GOP would undoubtedly be able to coordinate with its nominees in those Council races. Vince Fenerty, who chairs the Republican City Committee, said he is seeking legal advice on that question.

    “We’re hopeful that there could be a chance for us to help our City Council candidates next year and everyone else who runs [as a Republican],” he said.

    It is unclear whether the ruling would benefit the smaller Working Families Party, which under Pennsylvania law is not a major political party. (Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court is currently deciding an unrelated case on the Green Party that could affect the legal standing of groups like the Working Families Party.)

    At left is attorney Matt Wolfe and Vince Fenerty, chair of the Philadelphia Republican Party attended the hearing for Working Families Party candidates. Hearing in courtroom 443 Philadelphia City Hall for Working Families Party candidates on Friday, August 11, 2023.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    In a statement, Working Families Party spokesperson Nick Gavio lamented the direction of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rulings on campaign finance law.

    “Anyone who has knocked a door in Philadelphia knows that regular voters are not pushing to give billionaires and the ultra-rich more power to influence our elections,” he said. “WFP has no interest in overturning existing campaign finance regulations that act as guardrails against political and corporate insiders buying elections. We will of course continue to follow all campaign finance rules that are on the books.”

    A new quandary for the ethics board

    In stark contract to the increasingly unregulated world of federal elections, Philadelphia has some of the tightest campaign finance restrictions in the country, and the ethics board has aggressively enforced the city’s rules.

    Critics, including Greenberg, believe the board has already overextended itself by sticking to Philly’s rules as the Supreme Court increasingly takes a wrecking ball to federal campaign finance law. And for Greenberg, the NRSC case is the latest decision that shows Philly is overdue for a full redo that “addresses these issues in light of the [Supreme Court’s] clear direction.”

    “City Council needs to write appropriate rules, and the board of ethics needs to rescind almost all of its existing regulations and readopt them in law,” he said.

    It is unlikely the ethics board would lead the charge in demolishing the campaign finance system it helped to create — one that has been widely credited with limiting the influence of corporate interests and super-wealthy individuals since it was implemented in 2005.

    In an interview, Creamer, the ethics board executive director, referenced differences between the federal law in question in the NRSC case and Philly’s system — an indication the board could determine the decision has no bearing on local elections.

    “We don’t have a similar structure to our law. So it may impact our law somehow; it may not,” Creamer said. “We’re still analyzing it.”

    There are several important differences the board could point to. In federal law, for instance, there are limits on how much individuals can give to political parties, but in Philadelphia there are none.

    In addition, the majority opinion in the NRSC decision, which was authored by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, discusses at length how rules around “earmarked” donations — in which donors give money to political parties and direct them to spend it on specific candidates — provide a “prophylaxis” against corruption that could result from eliminating limits on coordination with political parties. Philly does not have an earmarking process.

    If the ethics board stands pat, candidates or political parties seeking to take advantage of the NRSC ruling could challenge the board’s regulations in court. Politicians in heavily Democratic cities like Philadelphia, however, face strong disincentives from taking that step, which would allow them to be painted as supportive of moneyed interests playing a greater role in local politics.

    Bonin, who has been less critical of the ethics board’s approach to campaign finance than Greenberg, said resistance to the NRSC case would be difficult.

    “Whether they like it or not, they have to allow it,” Bonin said, referring to coordination between candidates and parties.

  • Trump’s putting his thumb on the mail-in ballot scale. The Supreme Court is letting him.

    Trump’s putting his thumb on the mail-in ballot scale. The Supreme Court is letting him.

    There are those who would argue that Donald Trump poses the greatest threat to American democracy we’ve ever seen from a sitting president. However, with its decision to allow Trump’s executive order on limiting the use of mail-in ballots to move forward, the U.S. Supreme Court has surpassed him.

    The Constitution clearly gives states, and not the president, the primary authority to administer elections. Congress has secondary authority, but only under emergency conditions. That means the president’s executive order, which directs various federal departments to impose rules on mail-in balloting if it is “feasible” and “lawful,” is more than a cynical attempt to save Republicans from losing congressional seats. His executive order is blatantly unconstitutional.

    Yet, in a ruling that seems bizarre on its face, the Supreme Court has decided, with a crucial midterm election just weeks away, that Trump’s executive order does not interfere with the states’ authority “‘to create and enforce a legal code’ for elections.”

    That’s nonsense. In my view, and in the opinion of 56 former judges who submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, Trump’s order is all about interference. Changing rules just weeks before mail-in ballots are set to be sent to voters is an exercise in chaos. It is designed to hamper voting in blue states whose cities are filled with African American voters and others who tend to cast ballots for Democrats.

    Joy L. Jackson (right) and Ketha Otis demonstrate against proposed changes to the U.S. Postal Service and President Donald Trump’s executive order regarding mail-in ballots in Miami Gardens, Fla., last month.Marta Lavandier

    Voter suppression is the apparent goal, and the Supreme Court has played an outsized role in helping the Trump administration to get there. Even now, as the U.S. Department of Justice petitions U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani to reverse her nationwide injunction on Trump’s executive order, the Supreme Court looms in the background, ready to further erode democracy.

    Of course, the threat posed by the court is about more than just one ruling. It is about the justices’ pattern of acceding to the whims of a president who seems to view the Constitution as a suggestion, rather than the law.

    In 2024, the court shocked legal observers by ruling in Trump v. the United States that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions they take while in office. And just a week ago, the court allowed construction of the president’s legally dubious $400 million ballroom to continue while lower court appeals play out, knowing the ballroom will likely be near completion by the time the courts catch up.

    Still, the Supreme Court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices Trump nominated to the bench, does not have the last word on his policies. In America, the people have the final say. That’s why this latest gambit to cripple mail-in voting is so dangerous, and it is why the Supreme Court must be held accountable.

    SCOTUS ruling on voting rights is the Trump administration’s latest attempt to decimate Black political power | Solomon Jones

    The people must sit in judgment of a president who starts a war that results in skyrocketing gas prices and American loss of life. The people must sit in judgment of a president who demolishes half of the White House without congressional approval. The people must sit in judgment of a president who wrecks the economy with illegal tariffs, and the people must sit in judgment of a president whose immigration crackdown costs American citizens their lives.

    Polling has already indicated that Trump, whose 33% approval rating represents his all-time low, could drag his party down in the upcoming midterm elections. But as a seasoned politician once told me, the only poll that matters is the one that takes place on Election Day. Trump understands this truth, and he is trying to put his thumb on the scales. That’s to be expected, but he should not have the Supreme Court’s help.

    At its best, America’s highest court should be apolitical, driven both by the letter and the spirit of the law. It should serve as a check on the worst instincts of politicians, and as a guardrail against tyranny. This court has failed on all those fronts, and has instead allowed itself to be driven and shaped by conservative ideology. It has fallen so far that it has seemingly been co-opted by those who would stop Americans from exercising their most basic freedom — the vote.