The Cabinet, the Census and third-party votes. See who made this week’s Ups & Downs!

Lou Barletta. At the start of the week it looked like Congressman Barletta was going to be the next Secretary of Transportation. Five days later, though, he is weighing an offer to become Secretary of Labor instead. Apparently endorsing a candidate when no one thought that person could win has its advantages. That decision may well catapult Rep. Barletta into the new Presidential Cabinet.

PA’s Congressional Delegation. Why the down arrow for the commonwealth’s entire delegation in the House? Simple, it appears one of them won’t make it into the next decade. Pennsylvania is set to lose another Congressional seat after the 2020 Census. This would be only the latest chapter in the long-running saga of PA’s eroding population, congressional representation and electoral votes. In fact, the last census in which this didn’t happen was all the way back in 1920.  

Hillary Clinton. It’s hard to imagine things could get worse for the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee. Then came Jill Stein. The Green Party nominee is asking for recounts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, reopening a fresh wound and causes headaches for Clinton. The irony, of course, is that we found out this week that Stein’s vote totals in each of these states was more than the difference between Clinton and Trump. Every loss is difficult but coming up 79,316 votes short out of over 135 million cast will sting for the rest of her life.

Matt Cartwright. Amidst the scramble in the aftermath of last month’s election, the Northeastern PA Congressman won a promotion. In order to reach out to younger members of her caucus in anticipation of a leadership challenge, Pelosi added a trio of Congressmen to the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. Among them were Rep. Matt Cartwright, who will have a platform if Speaker Ryan follows through on his long-time plan to voucherize Medicare. Expect to see more of Congressman Cartwright in the next two years.  

Eric Papenfuse. We’ll be giving the Harrisburg Mayor a down arrow every week until he lifts his ridiculous ban of PennLive. This is the twenty-fifth week.

The tweet of the week goes to Dave Wasserman who provided some sombering statistics on the 2016 presidential election.

By my estimates, of 227 million eligible voters in U.S.:

40.3% didn't vote
28.8% voted Clinton
27.7% voted Trump
3.2% voted someone else

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 29, 2016