The Liberty City Democratic Club held its endorsement meeting last week, with members selecting the slate of candidates they felt would best represent the LGBT community at the state and federal levels.
The LGBT political group endorsed U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in his reelection bid against challenger Congressman Joe Sestak (7th Dist.), as well as Joe Hoeffel in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race.
Micah Mahjoubian, co-chair of Liberty City, said those two races saw the most debate from the 55 voting members in attendance at the April 8 endorsement meeting, although the disagreement wasn’t as widespread as in years past.
“There was definitely support for both candidates in the Senate race and it was between Hoeffel and [Allegheny County Executive Dan] Onorato in the governor’s race, although the winners did win with about 60 percent of the votes,” he said. “But when you compare it to when John Street was running for reelection as mayor, that was very close and there was lots of maneuvering and caucusing from each side, but we didn’t really have that this time around.”
Other endorsed candidates include Jonathan Saidel for lieutenant governor, Manan Trivedi for 6th District in the U.S. House and Pennsylvania House candidates Fern Kaufman for the 26th District, who is an open lesbian; Tim Kearney for the 172nd District; Jonathan Ramos for the 180th District; Lewis Thomas for the 181st District; Josh Cohen for the 194th District; and Anthony Ingargiola for the 195th District.
The club also endorsed incumbent Reps. Mike O’Brien (175th Dist.), Babette Josephs (182nd Dist.), Kenyatta Johnson (186th Dist.), James Roebuck (188th Dist.) and Vanessa Brown (190th Dist.).
An endorsement committee comprised of 10 Liberty City members recently met to review all of the questionnaires completed by candidates seeking endorsements and made recommendations. The committee then put forth motions to endorse each candidate during the meeting and, after debate on some of the candidates, each recommendation was supported by a majority of the voting body.
Not making the list were out candidates Daryl LaFountain and Gregg Kravitz, who were challenging incumbents O’Brien and Josephs, respectively.
Mahjoubian noted that the club did not make endorsements for all races, such as in the 7th Congressional District, in which none of the candidates completed questionnaires. The club also did not make primary endorsements in uncontested Democratic races, such as incumbent Rep. Patrick Murphy (8th Dist.).
The primary election will be held May 18.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].