PA Press Club – Monday, March 25, 2024

James Lee, President & CEO

Susquehanna Polling & Research

Susquehanna Polling and Research (SP&R) is a nationally recognized, survey research and polling firm headquartered in Pennsylvania, and specializes in a full range of research services for businesses and state agencies, national and state trade associations, hospitals and health systems, candidates for public office and media outlets. The firm conducts polling in more than thirty states. Founded in 2000, SP&R includes a team of research associates with more than 50 years of combined experience, including telephone agents, focus group recruiters and other consultants. Susquehanna Polling and Research acquired The Bartlett Research Group in 2016, a Harrisburg-area focus group company that has been conducting qualitative research and focus group services for a wide range of national and state clients since 1986.

SP&R’s publicly released polling has been quoted in numerous national platforms including FOX News, MSNBC, CNN, the Rush Limbaugh radio program, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and USA Today. SP&R was profiled by CBS’s Inside Edition on two separate episodes for its unmatched accuracy in the 2020 battleground polling, and the nationally acclaimed, polling aggregator Real Clear Politics (www.realclearpolitics.com) rated SP&R the #1 most accurate polling firm in the nation for its accuracy in the 2020 presidential election in multiple states.

Jim earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lycoming College, and has 12 credits earned towards an M.P.A. program at Shippensburg University. Jim resides in Thompsontown, Juniata County, with his wife Dr. Megan Kurlychek, and has two daughters, Ava and Alexis, ages 19 and 15.

PA Press Club – Monday February 26, 2024

Secretary Al Schmidt

Secretary of the Commonwealth

Gov. Josh Shapiro appointed Al Schmidt as Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth on Jan. 17, 2023, and Schmidt officially became Secretary on June 29, 2023. Prior to his appointment, Schmidt was president and chief executive officer at the Committee of Seventy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan good-government organization focused on strengthening democracy and combatting political corruption.

Before joining the Committee of Seventy, Schmidt served for 10 years as a Philadelphia City Commissioner. As a commissioner, Schmidt was one of three members on the bipartisan Board of Elections, where he was vice chairman. Since first being elected as city commissioner in November 2011, Schmidt worked to modernize election operations, improve efficiency, and bring greater integrity to the election process.

Secretary Schmidt was also a senior performance analyst at the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office, where he conducted performance audits of federal programs on behalf of Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. House and Senate. He also served as a policy analyst for the Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Schmidt holds a doctorate in history from Brandeis University and a bachelor’s degree in history from Allegheny College.

Commonwealth on Jan. 17, 2023, and Schmidt officially became Secretary on June 29, 2023. Prior to his appointment, Schmidt was president and chief executive officer at the Committee of Seventy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan good-government organization focused on strengthening democracy and combatting political corruption.

Before joining the Committee of Seventy, Schmidt served for 10 years as a Philadelphia City Commissioner. As a commissioner, Schmidt was one of three members on the bipartisan Board of Elections, where he was vice chairman. Since first being elected as city commissioner in November 2011, Schmidt worked to modernize election operations, improve efficiency, and bring greater integrity to the election process.

Secretary Schmidt was also a senior performance analyst at the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office, where he conducted performance audits of federal programs on behalf of Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. House and Senate. He also served as a policy analyst for the Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Schmidt holds a doctorate in history from Brandeis University and a bachelor’s degree in history from Allegheny College.

PA Press Club Luncheon – Monday January 22, 2024

The Honorable  Jordan A. Harris

Pennsylvania House Majority Appropriations Chair

Jordan A. Harris was first elected in 2012 to represent the 186th Legislative District, which comprises communities in south and southwest Philadelphia. Harris began his ascension in leadership in 2018, after being elected Whip for the Democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives. Most recently, his colleagues elected him as the Democratic Appropriations Chair for the 2023-24 legislative session. Harris is the first African American to serve as both Whip and Appropriations Chair and the second African American in either position. Harris has also served as Chair of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus.

A lifelong resident of south Philadelphia, Harris graduated from Philadelphia’s John Bartram Motivation High School. He attended Millersville University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in Government and Political Affairs. He holds a master’s degree in Education from Cabrini College and is currently a doctoral candidate in Educational Leadership at Neumann University. Before pursuing a career in public service, Harris focused on his passion for helping children and young adults—as an educator in the city of Philadelphia, an employee in the Philadelphia Public School System, and as the Executive Director of Philadelphia’s Youth Commission.

Through his legislative work, Harris has become a national leader in criminal justice reform. Along with Republican co-sponsor Rep. Sheryl Delozier, Harris authored Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate Law. Clean Slate was signed into law in 2018 by Governor Tom Wolf and is regarded as a national model for automatically sealing certain criminal records. Since passing Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate Law, over 40 million criminal records have been automatically sealed in Pennsylvania, and multiple states have passed automatic record-sealing legislation. Congress currently has Clean Slate legislation awaiting action. On June 5, 2023, Harris and Delozier’s expansion of Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate law passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support and is currently awaiting action by the Senate.

Harris also advocates reforming Pennsylvania’s outdated, archaic, and overly punitive probation system. In the 2021-22 legislative session, he co-sponsored with Delozier a probation reform bill with wide bipartisan support to reduce the incidents of technical violations that hold individuals under constant supervision.

Harris was named one of The Philadelphia Tribune Magazine’s “10 People Under 40 to Watch in 2011.” He was selected as Talk Magazine’s 101st person on their “2017 Most Influential Person” list in PA. He also received Odunde365’s 2017 Community Service Award for Positively Impacting Lives. In 2017, Philadelphia Magazine named Harris one of “Philadelphia’s 100 Most Influential People.” In 2019, Harris and the other bipartisan, bicameral Criminal Justice Reform Caucus co-founders were awarded the Allegheny College Prize for Civility in Public Life. In 2023, he was named as one of “Philadelphia’s 150 Most Influential Philadelphians” by Philadelphia Magazine.

Harris is President of the Board of Directors at Lincoln Day Educational Center, the oldest continuously operating African-American Day School in the country. Harris currently serves as a member of the Council of Trustees at his alma mater – Millersville University. He serves as a Member of the Board of the Hardy Williams Education Fund, the Christian Street YMCA, and the Knight Foundation. He is a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. Nu Sigma Chapter and Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons Cephas Lodge #98.

Press Club Luncheon Monday, November 20, 2023

The Honorable Josh Shapiro

Governor of Pennsylvania

Josh grew up in Pennsylvania, watching his parents serve their community — his father was a pediatrician, and his mother was an educator. Their example inspired Josh to enter into public service, and from a young age, Josh recognized that standing up for others was how he wanted to spend his career. After marrying his high-school sweetheart Lori and welcoming their first child, Josh returned to his hometown and successfully ran for State Representative. As Representative, Josh helped write and pass some of the toughest ethics laws in state history. His work earned him a reputation as a rare public servant willing to take on the status quo — “a blast of oxygen in the smoke-choked back rooms of quid-pro-quo Harrisburg.”

Then, as Chairman of the Board of Commissioners in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania’s third-largest, Josh led a fiscal and ethical turnaround. Before he took office, Montgomery County had a $10 million budget deficit and an underfunded pension for county employees. Josh put the county back on solid financial footing, took early steps to combat the heroin epidemic, helped the first LGBTQ+ couples in Pennsylvania marry, and fired Wall Street money managers to save taxpayers and retirees millions.

In 2016, Josh successfully ran to be Pennsylvania’s Attorney General. As Attorney General, he has restored integrity to an office badly in need of reform and taken on big fights for the people. He has proven to Pennsylvanians he can bring people together to solve tough problems and is unafraid to enforce the law without fear or favor.

Josh exposed the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover up of child sexual abuse, identifying 301 predator priests and thousands of victims — and spurring investigations across the United States. He forced an agreement between two of the Commonwealth’s largest insurance companies, protecting health care access for nearly 2 million Pennsylvanians, and he has repeatedly gone to court to defend Pennsylvanians’ reproductive rights and a woman’s right to choose.

He has held more than 100 corrupt officials, Republicans and Democrats alike, accountable for breaking the law. Working with law enforcement partners at the local, state, and federal level, he’s arrested thousands of mid- and high-level drug dealers while getting thousands of illegal guns off our streets.

During the 2020 presidential election, Josh protected the right to vote and defended Pennsylvania’s election result, winning in court dozens of times before and after Election Day. He continues to call out the dangerous lies that undermine our democracy and provide steady, strong, and competent leadership to protect voting rights in Pennsylvania.

In January 2021, Josh was sworn in for his second term as Attorney General. He arrested more than 8,000 drug dealers while investigating and suing pharmaceutical companies and the CEOs who knowingly perpetuated the opioid crisis to line their own pockets. He stood up for everyday consumers, seniors who’ve been scammed, and students preyed upon by private lenders by obtaining over $328 million in relief to Pennsylvanians who have been ripped off. He led on criminal justice reform, bringing activists and law enforcement together to launch a new statewide police misconduct database, taking on employers who steal from Pennsylvania workers.

In November 2022, Josh made history as the highest vote-getter in Pennsylvania gubernatorial history. Alongside his running mate Austin Davis, Josh is working with every Pennsylvanian to move our Commonwealth forward.

Josh and Lori are the proud parents of Sophia, Jonah, Max, and Reuben.