After three straight days facing condemnation from Democrats across Western Pennsylvania for its state House endorsements, Allegheny County Democratic Committee Chairwoman Eileen Kelly on Wednesday adamantly defended the endorsement process and blamed others — including County Executive Rich Fitzgerald — for dividing the party in a crucial election year.
Ms. Kelly said at a Wednesday press conference she found it “unbelievable” that Mr. Fitzgerald — who backed every other incumbent seeking the committee’s endorsement, she said — supported a “white male” challenger, Chris Roland, over an “African American incumbent,” state Rep. Summer Lee, in the primary for the 34th Legislative District.
“Why in the world he would want to start a fight now is unfathomable to me,” Ms. Kelly said of Mr. Fitzgerald, questioning why he would “consciously [try] to rip up the party.”
Ms. Kelly’s comments came amid scrutiny from Democrats — and Ms. Lee herself — who alleged the committee’s endorsement of Mr. Roland was another sign of the committee squashing progressive candidacies and refusing to fight for diversity. Ms. Lee is the first black woman to be elected to Harrisburg from the region.
Mr. Fitzgerald’s campaign adviser, calling the press conference “bizarre and confusing,” said that Ms. Kelly both insisted that the Democratic committee endorsement process was “flawless and needs no reforms,” yet attacked Mr. Fitzgerald for supporting a candidate who was endorsed by the same committee.
“No one has worked harder than Rich Fitzgerald to make sure Democrats win in 2020 up and down the ballot,” said Abby Nassif-Murphy, Mr. Fitzgerald’s senior campaign adviser.
Addressing a different endorsement by the committee, Ms. Kelly said there is no need to reform the process that allowed state House candidate Heather Kass — who faced criticism from committee members and elected officials for posting derogatory messages to her Facebook page in the past about addiction, gender and Obamacare — to win the endorsement over progressive activist Jess Benham.
Deeming it the “purest form of democracy,” Ms. Kelly said the endorsement process allows committee members — who she said “know the candidates best” — to choose which candidate is best for their own districts.
Committee members in the 36th District on Sunday endorsed Ms. Kass in a 49-to-19 vote over Ms. Benham, prompting an outpouring of disbelief from others on the committee and top county Democrats, including Mayor Bill Peduto, Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council President Darrin Kelly and State Sens. Wayne Fontana and Lindsey Williams.
Insisting that she’s bound to accept the endorsement of her committee, Ms. Kelly was joined at the press conference by 19th Ward committee chairman and Pittsburgh City Councilman Anthony Coghill, who said he found it “disturbing” to hear elected Democrats blast the committee and maintained that it’s never “winners” who complain about the system.
“I believe Jessica Benham lost that endorsement all on her own. That’s the truth of the matter,” said Mr. Coghill, who said committee members saw “guilt by association” between Ms. Benham and the officials who backed her — like Ms. Lee — who want to ban fracking.
After saying Ms. Kass does community service and is very “community-oriented,” Ms. Kelly questioned whether Ms. Benham’s platform was right for the district — the 36th District which will be vacant once incumbent Rep. Harry Readshaw retires at the end of the session — and remarked that “her issues were more global than local.”
Ms. Benham said she was knocking on doors all day Wednesday, and that voters in the district are responding positively to her platform.
Critics of the endorsement took issue with Ms. Kass’s social media history, which also included a post in support of then-candidate Donald Trump before the 2016 election, and asked publicly how the committee could endorse a candidate who doesn’t share the party’s values.
Among other messages, Ms. Kass asked on Facebook how a “junkie” can get free Narcan but children with allergies can’t and said they should overdose so there is “less [expletive] in the world.” In criticizing the Affordable Care Act, she mused at how “these lazy no good idiots” are “sucking the system dry,” and added, “Go Trump!”
One of those critics who took personal offense to Ms. Kass’s Facebook posts, County Councilwoman and recovering opioid addict Bethany Hallam, was kicked out of the press conference before it started. Ms. Kelly told her to leave when she noticed Ms. Hallam with her phone out, attempting to live-stream the proceedings.
Ms. Kass, who works in medical research and is a 29th Ward committeewoman, told the Post-Gazette on Monday that her posts, first reported by The Current, do not reflect who she is today. She said she’s “grown and learned since then,” and hoped Democrats would give her a “chance to grow and learn and move on from here.”
Ms. Kelly said she wouldn’t defend Ms. Kass’s posts, but said she spoke with Ms. Kass — who has apologized and expressed remorse.
“For some reason, no one wants to forgive her, but you know, we have Bethany Hallam who has her own background that she’s been open about and she comes out and says, ‘I’m sorry, blah, blah blah,’ she’s forgiven,” Ms. Kelly said.
Ms. Hallam, who said she listened to the press conference from the hallway, told reporters afterward that Ms. Kelly should never “put me, someone who battled for 10 years and has been in recovery for over three and a half years now ... as somebody that thinks that addicts do not deserve the basic human rights and the right to live as everyone else.”
Asked what he’d say to committee members like Ms. Hallam who took personal offense to Ms. Kass’s posts, Mr. Coghill said the posts were “disturbing” and noted that he doesn’t actively support Ms. Kass — but said he won’t “condemn her forever for a bad day.”
Mr. Coghill stuck behind the endorsement process, calling it the “best system in the world” in which committee members — individually elected in their own districts — are tasked with making the decisions. To see people “denigrate” it and ask that it be abolished is “unconscionable to me,” he said.
Ms. Hallam has called for a countywide meeting of committee members to discuss potential reforms.
Though she said she sees nothing wrong with calling for a meeting, Ms. Kelly said no reform is needed, and asked why a system that has been running for so long without issues should be changed.
“It’s not broken,” Ms. Kelly said.
Both Ms. Kelly and Mr. Coghill defended the filing fee that interested candidates must pay to the committee to seek its endorsement.
“You go to a show, you pay a fee. You go to a restaurant, you pay a fee. You want to run for elected office, where you make a lot of money over a four-year term? You pay a fee,” Ms. Kelly said.
After the conference, Ms. Hallam renewed her calls for a countywide meeting.
“The fight to reform the committee is not going to stop,” she said.
Allegheny County Republican Committee Chairman Sam DeMarco Wednesday issued a statement following Ms. Kelly’s press conference.
“It’s a painful thing to watch the dissolution of a perfectly mediocre political committee, but today’s spectacle is a great reminder that the Democratic Party long ago ceased to exist,” the statement read. “What we have now is a retinue of left-over ward-heelers fighting with a cadre of dynamic, young lunatics who thrive on disruption, cheap rhetoric and groovy fads.”
Julian Routh: 412-263-1952, jrouth@post-gazette.com. Twitter@julianrouth
First Published: February 19, 2020, 11:50 p.m.
