Pa. State Rep. Summer Lee Announces Bid For Congress
BRADDOCK (KDKA) -- It took less than 24 hours after Congressman Mike Doyle said he was not running for reelection for another candidate to announce her canidacy.
State Representative Summer Lee tossed her hat into the ring on Tuesday morning.
Three years ago, Lee became the first African American woman from this region elected to Harrisburg. Now she wants to be the first Black person from this region elected to Congress.
A skilled organizer whose group, Unite, helped Ed Gainey defeat Bill Peduto last May, Lee said it's time marginalized people to take control.
"Too often, it's communities like ours that are not allowed to prepare or think about the economies of the future, and it's always Black and brown and poor and vulnerable people in communities that are left to pick up the pieces," Lee said. "But we're rarely the folks leading the conversation."
"I am running because now is our time. It is time for movement, not monuments," Lee added. "It is time that we have a people-centered, people-powered politics that changes our region, changes our nation."
Besides support from mayoral candidate Ed Gainey, Lee was endorsed by Justice Democrats, a national organization that helped elect progressive, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to Congress.
Pitt law professor Jerry Dickinson, who ran against Doyle last year, is running again and other candidates are expected.
