Armchair Lehigh Valley <\/a>that he did not meet the residency requirements for the position, as he lived in Florida until 2023. Under state law, candidates must live in Pennsylvania for four years.<\/p>\nLehigh County Democratic Party Chair Lori MacFarland could not be reached for comment Monday.<\/p>\n
However, according to state Rep. Mike Schlossberg, the party did not choose from other candidates who applied for the nomination \u2014 including Allentown City Council member Ce-Ce Gerlach \u2014 because they failed to receive more than one vote from the committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was really, really difficult, and people who were upset, the concerns were completely understood, nobody wanted to be in this situation, but in the circumstances I think it is pretty clear Ana really is the best candidate to serve the district,\u201d Schlossberg said Monday.<\/p>\n
According to Schlossberg, Lehigh County Democrats faced a Monday deadline to appoint a new candidate after Guridy dropped out. If they had failed to meet that deadline, they would have had no candidate on the ballot for the special election.<\/p>\n
The seat is considered vital for Democrats to retain their slim majority in the state House. With four seats vacant statewide, Democrats have a 100-99 majority, and the outcome of four special elections in February and March, including in District 22, will determine the balance of power in the House.<\/p>\n
Lehigh County Republicans selected former Allentown School Board member Bob Smith Jr. as their candidate. Democrats significantly outnumber Republicans in the district.<\/p>\n
Tiburcio, a Dieruff High School graduate who has lived in Allentown for over 27 years after relocating from New York, said her campaign platform will include increasing education funding, workforce development and prisoner reentry, all things that she has advocated for as a volunteer for efforts including Allentown Works and Love Your Block, a city initiative to revitalize the Franklin Park neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Her position as Allentown school director is unpaid. She is a program coordinator for the nonprofit Fine Feather Foundation, and owner of tax company A&M Tax & Services, according to her LinkedIn profile.<\/p>\n
Tiburcio told The Morning Call that, if elected, she would focus on bringing much-needed resources, like education and workforce training, to the district and connecting people with them.<\/p>\n
\u201cDistrict 22 won\u2019t be so much of like, usually people say, \u2018oh, it\u2019s a ghost town,\u2019 it is really not,\u201d Tiburcio said. \u201cThey have the resources, we just need to actually connect them to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am still getting everything together,\u201d Tiburcio added of her sudden campaign. \u201cLike I told Mike Schlossberg, you know, this was a 180, but we are here, and we are here to do the work.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a follow-up interview, Guridy declined to elaborate on the reason for his withdrawal. He did not comment on accusations from some of his former opponents for the Democratic nomination that he lives outside of the district, thereby disqualifying him from the race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have heard that as well, and it\u2019s not something that I really want to comment on,\u201d Guridy said. \u201cI just want to \u2014 it is just personal, and it\u2019s not my time yet and I quickly realized that I am very supported, with the support that I got, I appreciate it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tiburcio plans to run in the May primary for a full, two-year term representing the 22nd District beginning in 2027. She will face a challenge from Gerlach, who is running a campaign to the left of the Democratic Party\u2019s platform.<\/p>\n
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ana Tiburcio, the Democrats\u2019 new hand-selected candidate for the special election in House District 22 representing parts of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,836,433,182,139,28,50,432],"class_list":{"0":"post-85470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-election","12":"tag-lehigh-county","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85470","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=85470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}