Pennsylvania Democratic Party, which oversaw Tuesday\u2019s session, intervened<\/a> in the county party dispute to facilitate the process of electing new officers. A total of 298 committee voters, including 109 proxies, were credentialed to cast ballots during the reorganization at the Hilton Scranton and Conference Center downtown, which lacked the acrimony that marked the bitter intraparty conflict in recent weeks.<\/p>\nValonis and all but one of her slate of candidates for other leadership positions emerged victorious, defeating most of a competing slate headed by fellow chairwoman candidate Lexie Kelly. The margins of the individual votes were not immediately available.<\/p>\n
Kelly, the elected committeewoman for Newton Twp. and a leader of a self-described reformist faction of the county party, was conciliatory in defeat and expressed confidence that there\u2019s a path forward for party to unify. President of the Abington Democrats, she generally counted among her supporters dozens of elected committee members targeted for removal in June by outgoing Chairman Chris Patrick.<\/p>\n
Valonis, the elected committeewoman for Archbald\u2019s Ward 1 Precinct 2, delivered a unifying message in her brief speech prior to the vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone here tonight loves this party, including Lexie, who helped build something real in the Abingtons, and I have genuine respect for that,\u201d Valonis said. \u201cBecause this isn\u2019t about one slate winning, it\u2019s about what we build together starting now. \u2026 Our elected officials asked me to bring both sides together and not to represent one side over another, but to lead a committee that works for everyone in it. And I said yes because I truly believe that\u2019s possible. And here\u2019s what I\u2019ve heard this week loud and clear: We\u2019re not as far apart as it may seem.\u201d<\/p>\n
All but one of the other four candidates on Valonis\u2019 slate won election to the county committee offices they sought, including Dickson City Mayor Bob MacCallum for first vice chair, Maurice Nehme for second vice chair, Mary Kate Donahue for third vice chair and Sarah Helcoski for treasurer. Josh Castellani ran for secretary, but lost to Jennifer Partyka, a member of Kelly\u2019s slate.<\/p>\n
The county Democratic Committee was going to have a new leader regardless of Tuesday\u2019s outcome because Patrick, a three-term chairman, did not seek a fourth. A polarizing figure among county Democrats, Patrick has repeatedly defended in recent weeks his fruitless attempt to oust the 76 elected members for alleged bylaws violations \u2014 a controversial move that galvanized the committee\u2019s reformist faction even though it largely fell short Tuesday.<\/p>\n
By intervening in the local dispute, the state party effectively precluded Patrick from removing the members ahead of the reorganization. Patrick, who had said the 76 wouldn\u2019t be allowed to participate, maintains they violated county party rules for supporting independent candidates in elections last year.<\/p>\n
Several longtime Democrats ran for local and county offices as independents last year, challenging official Democratic nominees amid a veritable intraparty civil war that erupted over and during the process of replacing former Democratic Commissioner Matt McGloin.<\/p>\n
The stymied effort to remove members and an injunction lawsuit it prompted from 13 members targeted for removal were among the latest salvos in that Democratic factional conflict. It\u2019s not clear if infighting will continue under the committee\u2019s new leadership, but both Kelly and Valonis stressed in recent interviews the importance of future party unity with a collective goal of defeating Republicans.<\/p>\n
Check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 The Lackawanna County Democratic Committee elected school counselor Larissa Cleary Valonis as its chairwoman Tuesday during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,883,139,28,50,178,180,179,729],"class_list":["post-243616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-politics","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}