Tom Waring, The Wire
Former congressman Joe Sestak last week announced he would seek the Democratic nomination for Senate in 2016.
Sestak, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who served two terms representing a Delaware County-based district, made his announcement at Independence Hall.
No other Democrats have announced their candidacies. The incumbent is Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, who edged Sestak in 2010.
“Toomey acts like he cares about helping the poor but then votes against struggling Pennsylvanians back in Washington, D.C.,” Sestak said. “Even the Erie Times-News editorial board noted how Toomey failed to invite any women or minorities to a staged event about poverty and homelessness late last year. Toomey believes the underserved population is on its own.”
Meanwhile, the VoteVets.org political action committee endorsed Sestak.
“There are many problems in Washington these days,” said Jon Soltz, an Iraq War veteran and chairman of VoteVets.org PAC. “But, at the core of it, there’s a deficit of trust. Americans don’t trust their elected officials, and elected officials don’t really trust each other. I have known Joe Sestak for a long time. There’s not a person I would trust more than him. Sailors put their trust in him, and he lived up to their trust. Parents put their trust in him when their kids enlisted in the Navy, and he lived up to their trust. He’s always lived up to the trust of Pennsylvanians. We need Joe Sestak in Washington, now more than ever.”
VoteVets.org PAC endorsed Sestak in his previous campaigns for House and Senate.
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Joe Torsella, a Democratic candidate for state treasurer in 2016, last week called for tough new reporting measures that would add a vendor’s political contributions to the state contracts database administered by the Treasury Department.
The proposal would let citizens see all information on political giving and state contracts in one place.
“Open and ethical government should have nothing to hide when it comes to the awarding of state contracts,” Torsella said. “It’s an issue where the commonwealth is falling short, and this commonsense proposal would instead make us a leader on ethics and transparency. Pennsylvania currently gets a C-minus rating from an independent nonprofit on state integrity measures. We can and should do much better. By adding political contributions to the Treasury Department’s contracts database and redesigning that tool to make it user-friendly, the next treasurer can be a catalyst for open and transparent record-keeping and full disclosure of all public information related to vendors’ campaign contributions.”
Torsella was the founding president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonprofit museum and education center in Philadelphia. He ran for the Democratic nomination in the 13th Congressional District in 2004, but lost to Allyson Schwartz.
Torsella and his wife, Carolyn P. Short, a lawyer, have four children and live in Flourtown.
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Jefferson County President Judge John Foradora last week announced his candidacy for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Foradora will seek the Democratic nomination in the May 19 primary. There are three openings.
“Pennsylvania is much more, much bigger, than just Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania has the second-largest rural population in the U.S. — it is time our Supreme Court reflected that population,” he said. “To have a truly balanced court, and to truly clean it up, we need a justice who has seen what life looks like for Pennsylvanians who live in the vast ‘T’ that is often overlooked in elections.”
Foradora was elected in 2001. He was the first Democrat elected to serve as a Jefferson County judge.
“Unlike the other candidates in this race, as president judge of a one-judge county, I have been on the front line of every type of case that can come before the Court — criminal cases, misdemeanors to murder; divorce, custody, dependency, adoptions, property disputes, medical malpractice, contract disputes — you name it, I’ve seen it. I know with my experience and the values I hold deep in my heart I can help clean up our Supreme Court.”
