{"id":312670,"date":"2026-10-23T12:32:47","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T12:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/312670\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T12:32:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T12:32:47","slug":"charlie-dent-to-co-launch-bipartisan-democracy-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/312670\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Dent to co-launch bipartisan democracy initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A former Republican House representative for the Lehigh Valley, alongside a former Democratic representative from western Pennsylvania, are launching a new, bipartisan democracy initiative with a kickoff event in Bethlehem.<\/p>\n<p>Former GOP Rep. Charlie Dent, who represented the Lehigh Valley in Congress from 2005-2018, and Conor Lamb, a former Democratic representative in the Pittsburgh area, are co-leading the newly formed Pennsylvania Alliance for Civic Trust.<\/p>\n<p>According to a news release, PACT is a statewide bipartisan network that aims to combat political misinformation, strengthen trust in democratic institutions and combat political violence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy bringing together voices from across the political spectrum, the initiative seeks to promote informed civic engagement and constructive dialogue,\u201d a news release from Lehigh University states.<\/p>\n<p>Dent, a moderate Republican, has endorsed Democrats running for office including Joe Biden and Josh Shapiro since he resigned from public office in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>The alliance will kick off with a panel about \u201cResilience of American Democracy\u201d moderated by Lehigh University Prof. Chris Borick on Oct. 26. Lamb and Dent will both serve as panelists, and Lehigh University President Joseph Helble will provide introductory remarks.<\/p>\n<p>The panel will take place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Packard Lab, Room 101 on Lehigh University\u2019s campus. <a href=\"https:\/\/rsvp.lehigh.edu\/index.cfm\/events:register\/primary\/eventId\/24632\/iq\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The event is free but advanced registration is required on Lehigh University\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Republican House representative for the Lehigh Valley, alongside a former Democratic representative from western Pennsylvania, are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,836,182,139,50,432],"class_list":["post-312670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-election","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312670","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=312670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}