blog.<\/a><\/p>\nWard and Pittman\u2019s statement noted that Brightbill\u2019s accomplishments also included ensuring electric supplier competition in the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cChip was a skilled, practical legislator who was especially passionate about helping his district,\u201d they said. \u201cHe will be remembered for his creative approach to solving problems, his ability to negotiate difficult, complex issues and his encyclopedic knowledge of the legislative process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brightbill began his career as a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News in the mid-1960s before becoming an attorney.\u00a0He served on the Lebanon School Board from 1965 to 1967 and was Lebanon County district attorney from 1977 to 1981.<\/p>\n
Brightbill lost his Senate seat after being defeated in the 2006 Republican primary, following voter outrage over the late-night legislative pay raise vote.\u00a0He went on to head government relations for the law firm Stevens & Lee.<\/p>\n
Former Gov. Ed Rendell, who worked closely with Brightbill during his administration, said although they came from different political parties, they \u201cworked well together.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he is greatly responsible for the tremendous economic progress we made as a state,\u201d Rendell said in an interview with PennLive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was tremendous growth and it was good for the economy. And we couldn\u2019t have done it without the cooperation of leader Brightbill. Chip was a worthy adversary, but he also knew when to join together to do things that were good for the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
PennLive staff writer Tirzah Christopher contributed to this article.<\/p>\n
\u00a92025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit pennlive.com<\/a>. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Amy Worden, J.D. Prose, pennlive.com Former state Senate Leader David \u201cChip\u201d Brightbill of Lebanon County, who in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,433,182,139,11100,28,29,50,128,130,129,706],"class_list":{"0":"post-30425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-lehigh-county","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-news-obituaries","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-pennsylvania-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-reading-city","17":"tag-reading-city-headlines","18":"tag-reading-city-news","19":"tag-top-stories-reg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30425","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=30425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}