Lehigh Valley Politics and Election News

Justin Simmons, the former Republican state representative, was among three people who filed nomination papers last week to seek the party's nomination in the May 20 primary election.

Democratic VIPs including U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, DNC Chair Ken Martin and former U.S. Rep. Susan Wild attended the town hall at Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on Thursday night. The evening came with a rebuke to attendees from the church pastor.

At a virtual town hall Thursday, U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh Valley, said he did not support cuts to Medicare or Social Security, called for peace in Ukraine, and gently pushed back on how the Trump administration handled cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Organizers with the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, Democratic National Congressional Committee and several other groups invited U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie to a town hall event Thursday over proposed Medicaid cuts. Instead, the first-term Republican will hold his own telephone town hall.

Philip Ginder, 74, who served on the Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners for 24 years, was appointed on Wednesday to fill the vacancy created when Commissioner Robert Piligian resigned in February.

Candidates for Northampton County Council, Allentown City Council, Allentown mayor and Parkland School Board are being challenged in court for allegedly failing to meet legal requirements to appear on the May ballot.

A Lehigh County judge ruled in favor of LoriAnn Fehnel, a Republican candidate for Whitehall Township Commissioner, who challenged that candidate Betsey H. Charles's nominating petition is invalid and should be set aside.

City officials voted in favor of raising the next council president’s salary from $7,600 to $11,400 a year and council members’ annual pay from $7,100 to $10,650. However, City Council decided against salary increases for the next mayor and controller.

This week on Political Pulse, host Tom Shortell speaks with Celeste Dee, owner of Lehigh Valley-based Advantage Political Strategies. The two talk about judicial campaigns.

The vacancy on the Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners will be filled at a meeting on Wednesday night. The board interviewed three candidates on Monday night.

A deadline set by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration came and went Friday for lawmakers to pass a package of proposed constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot in May’s primary election

Outgoing Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin has endorsed Gavin Holihan, his new lieutenant, to succeed him.

Stoneback Rose was born in Easton. She has worked in marketing for the last dozen years, organizing community events on the side.

Disputes over partisanship led local organizations to schedule competing workshops for potential political candidates.

Director Patrick Foose has recently clashed with other board directors and has been the lone dissenting vote on several issues related to transparency on the board.

Allentown City Council elected previous president Daryl Hendricks as the council president while outgoing president Cynthia Mota was elected to the vice president position

Ken Greene and Frank Pintabone are current Easton planning commission members looking for a seat on Easton's city council.

Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin will not be seeking reelection after nearly 25 years in the office

Levinson was originally appointed to the East Penn School Board in September 2018 and was later elected to a full four-year term in 2019.

Parkland School Board Vice President Marisa Ziegler announced her reelection campaign Tuesday.

Democrat Josh Shapiro will become the 48th governor of Pennsylvania at Tuesday's inaugural ceremony at the state Capitol, taking the oath of office on a cold winter day in the nation's fifth-most populous state on the heels of his blowout win in November's election.

Members of the governor-elect's transition team were required to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), so the public may never know how it progressed or who paid for it.