U.S. Senate hopeful Steve Welch held a press conference today announcing that he had received endorsements from 33 state legislators. Welch was joined by Lt. Governor Cawley, PA GOP chair Rob Gleason, Senate President Tempore Joe Scarnati, and Rep. Warren Kampf at the press conference.
With the 33 endorsements given today, Welch has more support from state legislators than any of his competitors in the primary race. The endorsements today came from 8 state senators and 25 state representatives.
During the conference call today, Lt. Gov. Cawley said Welch “will vote with the people. He’ll fight to lower our taxes, balance our budgets, shrink our federal government and cut wasteful spending just as Gov. Corbett and I have done here in Harrisburg.”
Cawley also added that “We need somebody who is an independent thinker, not Bob Casey who agrees with Obama’s policies 98% of the time.”
The main topic that was addressed by both Welch and his endorsers was the issue of small business.
Senate President Pro Tempore Scarnati said “[Welch] will use his private sector experience to fight for pro-growth policies that will restore America’s prosperity.” Scarnati also stated “there is a need in Washington for people with a business background.”
Welch spoke about his background as an entrepreneur and how the lack of true business experience in Congress is hurting small businesses in the U.S.
“What has drastically changed in this country is the burden that government is placing on our small businesses,” Welch said. “There are too few people in Washington who have ever done anything, passing policy after policy that is placing a huge burden on small businesses.”
Rep. Kampf echoed the statements of Lt. Governor Cawley and Senate President Pro Tempore Scarnati saying “Senator Casey and President Obama have not demonstrated the leadership we need to get our financial house in order. Steve will help to bring pro-growth, pro-job ideas to the national level.”
Welch concluded the press conference saying ““I am honored to have earned the endorsement of 33 key Pennsylvania State Legislators, including Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, today,” said Steve Welch, the Republican Endorsed Candidate for U.S. Senate. “These Legislators are leaders in their local communities who understand that a bigger, more centralized federal government is not the answer to restoring America’s prosperity. They understand the need to restore conservative principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility to Washington and I am grateful to have their full support.”
Here’s the full list:
State Senators
Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati — District 25 Cameron, Elk, Jefferson, McKean, Potter, Tioga, Clearfield, Warren Counties
Senator Rich Alloway — Chambersburg — District 33 Adams, Franklin, York Counties
Senator Pat Browne — Allentown —District 16 Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton Counties
Senator Mike Brubaker — Lititz — District 36 Lancaster, Chester Counties
Senator Jake Cornman — Bellefonte — District 34 Centre, Juniata, Mifflin, Perry, Union Counties
Senator Ted Erickson — Newton Square — District 26 Delaware, Chester Counties
Senator Bob Mensch — Pennsburg —District 24 Bucks, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton Counties
Senator Kim Ward — Greensburg — District 39 Westmoreland County
State Representatives
Rep. Stan Saylor — District 94 Red Lion — York County
Rep. Mike Vereb — District 150 Norristown — Montgomery County
Rep. Ryan Aument —District 41 Landisville — Lancaster County
Rep. Bill Adolph — District 165 Springfield — Delaware County
Rep. Stephen Barrar — District 160 Boothwyn— Delaware County
Rep. John Bear — District 97 Lititz — Lancaster County
Rep. Bryan Cutler — District 100 Peach Bottom — Lancaster County
Rep. Sheryl Delozier — District 88 New Cumberland — Cumberland County
Rep. George Dunbar — District 56 Jeannette—Westmoreland County
Rep. Glen Grell — District 87 Mechanicsburg — Cumberland County
Rep. Kate Harper — District 61 Lower Gwynedd — Montgomery County
Rep. C. Adam Harris — District 82 Mifflin —Mifflin County
Rep. Dick Hess — District 78 Bedford — Bedford County
Rep. Warren Kampf — District 157 Paoli — Chester County
Rep. Thomas Killion — District 168 Glenn Mills — Delaware County
Rep. John Maher — District 40 Upper St. Clair —Allegheny County
Rep. Nick Miccarelli — District 162 Ridley Park — Delaware County
Rep. Bernie O’Neill — District 29 Warminster — Bucks County
Rep. Scott Petri — District 178 New Hope— Bucks County
Rep. Tina Pickett — District 110 Towanda — Bradford County
Rep. Chris Ross — District 158 Kennett Square — Chester County
Rep. Curt Sonney — District 4 Erie—Erie County
Rep. Todd Stephens — District 151 Horsham —Montgomery County
Rep. John Taylor — District 177 Philadelphia — Philadelphia County
Rep. Dan Truitt — District 156 West Chester — Chester County
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25 Responses
When, oh when, will the true conservatives unite before a primary and put up ONE really good candidate to defeat the establishment Specter lites?!
@Mark E Mark – The ones who are in leadership positions don’t surprise me, they are party leadership in effect. They signed onto a paper, just as many of the state committee people bowed to pressure from the stared down and arm twisting. What did it result in? I see less active state committee support in this cycle for a US Senate candidate than ever.
Many are also up for re-election. I doubt if any are in a close race they would try to coat tail Welch. or campaign for him.
@PA Slammer- You must have missed their post that the servers were being changed to handle the increased traffic.
@Jen- running for office requires more than just being able to perform the task and vote correctly. It requires that one has the ability to build organizations and raise funds. It is a complete package. Welch set aside a million for the race if he endorsed. But where is his organization? I agree , David and Marc are two quality men who could serve this country well. But neither has been able to build the statewide organizations , raise significant funds, or build state committee support.
That is part of running for US Senate.
Rohrer had a base from the previous run, but state committee support and funding still remains an issue. Smith, even taking out his personal donations has out raised these men.
One qualification I am surprised has not been made in this race. Rohrer is a social conservative. He is not a fiscal conservative. Unless one closes their eyes and pretends that destroying PSERS and SERS is fiscally conservative. Notice I never mention motivations for his three pension votes, but a 50% pension raise for legislators and a 25% raise for state employees/teachers certainly has potential political benefits in the short term with those who benefit from it. Objectively, 125%-60% funding to obligation ration is not the mark of a fiscal conservative.
I see the Trib has decided that David Christian is the best man for the job as I stated earlier. The man has proven himself to be a leader all his life. Check out his web page, and you’ll see why he’s the man needed to go to D.C. and fix it!
Has Sam Rohrer refused to accept his increased pension? Apologizing for it is meaningless. “I’m really sorry I plunged the state into billions of dollars of deficits as far as the eye can see in a big money grab for me and other state employees and teachers. Now let me cash this check”
If you want to beat the Tax-Increaser Smith and Pay-Raiser Sam, you need to get behind Marc Scaringi! He is the conservative in the race! Everyone else is a phony, a big fat PHONY! God will be on his side!!
Sam Rohrer the only choice. How many times do you see a politician admit he made a mistake? Then turn around and lead the charge to correct it.
This kind of action takes a strong man. I admire him for his honesty! Something you don’t find in people today. Vote Sam Rohrer!
I’m honestly surprised by some of the names that signed on board for the Welch disaster in order to curry favor with the Governor. Talk about a lack of integrity. I can truly understand why the Lt. Governor is going along because he’s so close to Corbett —but I really thought some of our legislators had more integrity than this. What a disappointment. I can tell you one thing, I haven’t seen any of them using their own websites & Facebook pages to step out for this guy. These legislators have exposed themselves as frauds and a time will come when they will have to answer to the voters for this.
Mike – can you see my comment
Last night I posted a comment that has been removed.
It was: Better rethink Toomey.
How was this offensive compared to other things said on this and other threads?
Why are posts being deleted from these threads?
I thought this website was for the voters of PA and not controlled by campaign offices.
Thank you for the list.
@THeAntiProgressive- The dirty little secret behind this is the party leaderships presuppositions in general. Think John Murtha.
Jen,
You are right on about David Christian, he is by FAR the best man for the job in this race. I think the reason he didn’t get the backing of the party is because he may not tow the party line, if he is not on board with all their views. David has shown that he is the type of leader that most people say they want in Washington, and his record proves it. He has my vote!
I don’t blame ALL of these candidates for following the party line. They probably need the party for the big show in Nov. Some are good and are being targeted by the opposing party.
Welch is trying to buy the election just check out the official Republican Party ballots where down on the bottom in teeney tiny print it says who actually paid for the Republican Party ballot. What is all that about? The official Party ballot is nothing more than an advertising piece for Steve Welch. The official Republican Ballot is available from Voter Services. That is the just ballot.
In fact how did his party “endorsement” come about in the first place. Actually how did any of the party endorsements come about?
Isn’t there a democratic process for all this?
Are we supposed to be impressed? Arms were twisted for his endorsement by the committee. Are we not supposed to have brains enough to know that they are in panic mode because welch cannot get above 5% in any of the polls? No surprise that they come out with a big group of people but who cares. The sad thing is that Corbett’s threats to Christian and his volunteers took him off the campaign trail for a month and drained his finances, yet he actually is the best qualified in all areas. Go check out the PCN interview of him that first aired on Wed 4/11. By the time I got through watching it, I was like he needs to be running for President instead of Senate. He has owned several so has the biz experience, has written and gotten bills passed working under 6 admins at the WH (Rohrer never had 1 bill passed); has foreign affairs experience…forget how many languages and countries he has been sent to…etc etc. Yet he also stands up against the establishment as shown with his recent battle with Corbett and he lost a job under Pres Carter because he stood up for the veterans instead of following what he was told to do. Apparently when everyone else was doing campaigning in Nov, he was helping locals get elected…I am sure they will remember that. There is little out there about him but from what I have read, those he does meet connect with him and he wins them over. So, the question is will he be able to get enough to know about him to pull this off? If he doesn’t, the state of PA loses a chance at a real leader.
Another reason to work hard to Specter the endorsement.
@ Deborah. Tired old line? Is that what you are going to tell senior citizens here in the next couple years when they start losing their homes because of his fiscal irresponsibility? Act 9 was bad enough, and the caucus was warned that the projections given were wrong. The assumptions were flawed and unsustainable.. Act 38 Colas in a economic downturn was a b-slap to the voters. And Act 40, not paying for it , decimating the strength of the public retirement system, taking it from 125% to 60% assets to liability ratio today.
When you run on your record as the reason why people should vote for you, then these votes need to be discussed. An apology for decimating the public pension system does not take it off the table as an issue.
And most of the people discussing it are not establishment related.
At this point, as a GOP voter, an endorsement from someone in the party establishment guarantees I will NOT vote for you. I hope more and more voters will begin to think this way. I am originally from Ohio, and I am disgusted by the degree of control the party establishments are allowed in this state.
Hey Alan, you are not being fair. Sure Stevie Welch has only a quarter of the Republican legislators but imagine how many Democratic legislators are for him. Stevie Welch just can’t announce that at a press conference (yet?). Maybe this will all get straightened out once Stevie Welch grows up and decides if he is a D or an R.
As for Corbutt and his lackeys (I know, too nice a word), after the Republican wing of the Republican Party takes care of Stevie Welch, they are next –starting with do-nothing Corbutt. Governor Corbutt will rue the day he wasted his fast-disappearing political capital on “please make me a congressman or senator or whatever, I have lots of money” Stevie Welch.
As soon as this primary is over, the hard workers, committed to good government and limited government folks need to come together and clean house. It is possible to have talented, accomplished, smart, principled doers –look at Senator Toomey. We don’t have to settle for the Corbutts and Crawlers of the world –political hacks with no real grounding in policy.
There I said it.
But almost half the open primary group with five choices for US Senate refuse to engage & think neutral symposiums in the last weeks before the primary win for someone You got 5 choices
4 conservatives Christian, Scaringi, Smith & Rohrer and then Obama Welch. Your efforts created 4 good choices = get engaged or Obama Welch will win in a 5 way. We don’t need another think tank – the voters need your boots on the ground for the conservative ( 4) of your choice. We need reform. Validate with political follow-through
Those on the list may be controlled by the republican party and therefore resist having an open primary where the people have their say but each senator and representative have exactly one vote just like very other voter. As a life long republican, I could care less about how a politician says that I should cast my vote.
There are 25+ Republican State Senators –
8 endorsed Welch
There are 100+ Republican State Reps
25 endorsed Welch
Hello- for an endorsed candidate this is pitiful
Has Corbett lost his Mojo?
Stan Saylor for Welch is a surprise
1) Rohrer issued a public apology regarding the pension vote
2) Sam never took a cent of the pay raise. And he then immediately lead the fight for the successful repeal of the pay raise bill.
If this is the worst he does in 18 years of pressure from the leadership…. I’m ok with that. There is way more to both issues than meets the public eye. I appreciate the fact that despite the distortion of facts, Sam has refused to sling mud. That’s character.
There you go again BJ reciting the tired old party line. You sure aren’t an independent thinker are you? And ignorant of the facts to boot! You’d better stay home on election day-you sound like an Obama voter:)
Except for those times Rohrer voted for the midnight pay raise and the pension increase…
“We need somebody who is an independent thinker…”
Correction: Lt. Gov. Cawley and the Republican leadership want someone who will be in the leadership’s corner, not an independent thinker. This is who they will get with Welch. And those who just signed their names to the endorsed candidate have simply proven to me that they too are unable to think independently.
Does anyone wonder why the only candidate with office experience has not been endorsed by the Republican party? It is because time and time again Sam stuck to his guns without bowing to political pressure. This is why I support Sam Rohrer. I’m tired of the party telling me who to vote for!
Thanks for the list of targets. After you lose, we can start working on these guys.