Democratic candidate for PA-01 Ashley Ehasz speaks at a forum at Bucks County Community College in Newtown Oct. 22, 2024 (Photo by Christina Kristofic for the Capital-Star)
What was supposed to be a friendly debate on Tuesday between the two candidates running to represent Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District turned into a town hall-style meeting for Democrat Ashley Ehasz after Republican incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick declined to participate.
“I’m sorry that you don’t get a proper candidate forum tonight,” Ehasz said to 50-plus people gathered in a room at Bucks County Community College in Newtown.
Ehasz, who told the audience that her name is pronounced “like Hagen-Dazs, but with a long e,” briefly introduced herself as the daughter of a single mother who was also the daughter of a single mother. She said her experience moving “all around because we were trying to stay ahead of eviction notices” and struggling to put food on the table led her to join the Army at the age of 17 as a path towards stability.
“As a commander… I learned how to make a decision in a crisis,” she said. “And make no mistake, we are in a moment of crisis and in this moment of crisis Brian Fitzpatrick is nowhere to be seen.”
She said our nation’s democracy is “under attack,” as are some of its most vulnerable residents.
“Our community deserves a leader who knows and shares the values of our community. Our community deserves a leader who shows up for us,” Ehasz said.
Fitzpatrick chose not to participate in the forum because “our campaign does not give a platform to hate speech or those who engage in it,” a campaign spokesperson said in an email to the Capital-Star before the forum. The spokesperson cited a tweet in which Ehasz said Fitzpatrick and the National Republican Congressional Committee could “go f— yourselves” as an example of “hate speech.”
The UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech defines “hate speech” as any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.”
Challengers Ehasz and Stelson keep abortion policy front and center in U.S. House campaigns
The Fitzpatrick campaign had not contacted the New Pennsylvania Project, the group that organized the forum, to decline its invitation. And Kadida Kenner, the founding CEO of the New Pennsylvania Project and moderator of the forum Tuesday, seemed surprised to hear Fitzpatrick’s reason for not participating.
“Ashley didn’t invite them; we did. And we would have loved, as a nonpartisan organization, to have had both candidates on stage,” Kenner said. “So I wish they would have reached out to us.”
The New Pennsylvania Project was founded in 2021 with the goal of helping young people and marginalized people register to vote and learn about issues that impact them, so that Pennsylvania’s electorate reflects its demographics. Kenner said the organization has registered 40,000 new voters across the state in the last two years and is working to register more.
Most of the people who attended the forum on Tuesday did not appear to be New Pennsylvania Project’s target audience. Most were white, middle-aged women.
Kenner asked Ehasz questions on behalf of New Pennsylvania Project’s audience and the audience gathered at the community college. The Q&A lasted about an hour.
“Pennsylvanians want pro-choice, pro-democracy leadership. And those two things overlap,” Ehasz said, when asked why she is the best candidate to represent the congressional district.
She promised that, if elected, the first thing she would do is vote to make U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) Speaker of the House.
“Then we will get right down to business protecting voting rights, making sure we have a safe and lawful transfer of power because it will be Vice President Kamala Harris who is our president at the time,” Ehasz said.
She said the first piece of legislation a Democratic-controlled House will pass will be the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which aims to reduce discrimination at the polls.
After that, she said, she would work to protect women’s reproductive rights.
Ehasz said Fitzpatrick is “anti-choice” and “sold out every woman in our community for political gain.”
She said he voted for a nationwide abortion ban.
Fitzpatrick has taken issue with Ehasz’s characterization of him as anti-choice; his campaign spokesperson called it a “lie” in an email to the Capital-Star. Fitzpatrick’s spokesperson noted that he voted in favor of H.R. 36, which would have allowed abortion up to 20 weeks gestation and if medically necessary after that.
Ehasz favors H.R. 3755, which would prohibit any government restrictions on access to abortion services for a person’s entire pregnancy.
“The decision as to whether or not a woman has an abortion should be between her and her doctor,” Ehasz said. “It should not involve any politician. Not myself. Not Brian Fitzpatrick. Certainly not Brian Fitzpatrick.”
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Ehasz said, “we all saw in the Dobbs decision that there was an architecture, an infrastructure for them to erode more rights. We’ve seen attacks on IVF, on birth control. And we’ve seen women die due to these Trump-Fitzpatrick abortion bans that have been put in place.”
Ehasz said gun control is a “public health crisis.”
And while Ehasz said she supports the Second Amendment, she said she would also support a ban on assault weapons and the institution of universal background checks.
She said she believes the U.S. needs security at its southern border and that those officials should be supplied with the resources to do their jobs. But, she said, the U.S. needs to make it easier for immigrants to become citizens legally and protect the “Dreamers” — those who qualify under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, meant to protect those brought to the U.S. as children from deportation.
Ehasz said she would take steps to reduce housing costs, make child care affordable, and protect Social Security for senior citizens.
“Folks in this community need to be able to afford to live with dignity. Right now, there are too many folks struggling to get what they need. I understand what that’s like,” she said.
“Brian Fitzpatrick comes from a political dynasty. He has no idea what that’s like.”
Ehasz also promised to have her office open to the public and to hold regular town hall meetings in the community if she’s elected.
Ehasz just posted her strongest fundraising quarter to date, outraising Fitzpatrick for the first time, campaign finance reports showed. Ehasz’s campaign raised $1.25 million from the beginning of July to the end of September, while Fitzpatrick’s campaign raised just over $910,000 during the same time period. But Cook’s Political Report, a nonpartisan ratings outlet that considers multiple factors in a race, considers the contest in PA-01 as “likely Republican.”
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