Lackawanna County Commissioner O’Brien opens campaign to take seat away from longtime incumbent.
By Sherry Long slong@timesleader.com
, Staff Writer
First Published: October 4, 2009 by the Times Leader
WILKES-BARRE – Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey D. O’Brien announced Saturday he’s challenging incumbent Paul Kanjorski for the 11th District congressional seat.
Less than an hour after his announcement at his childhood home in Dunmore, he embarked on a 30-hour bus tour to knock on doors, meet with diner patrons and appear at the Bloomsburg Fair.
O’Brien, a 36-year-old Democrat, said he’s a listener and, if elected, will continue to pay attention to the issues affecting people in Carbon, Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne and Monroe counties.
He said Kanjorski, a 13-term incumbent from Nanticoke, is out of touch with issues actually affecting most people.
“Let them understand I am in it with them. I am somebody who lives in the community, somebody who loves the community and somebody who will work very hard every single day to get it done for the people of this region,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien said he would like to debate the incumbent in every county in the district.
If elected, he said, he will return to the district weekly and hold town hall meetings to get feedback from his constituents.
“I will be somebody who will be holding town hall meetings all the time and continuing to go door to door listening to people, taking their voices to Washington, instead of taking the Washington voice to the district,” he said.
He wants to work to create high-paying, family-sustaining jobs, focus on energy conservation and energy independence, support our troops/veterans, restore fiscal discipline and ensure access to high-quality affordable health care.
He learned at an early age that he wanted to serve in public office because a volunteer can only take projects so far. When he was an 18-year-old high school senior, he said he received a $600,000 federal appropriation to build a community center in Dunmore.
A graduate of Penn State University, he received his law degree, from the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.
As a county commissioner, he voted to enact the first countywide ban prohibiting any county employee from receiving any type of gift from a vendor – even a cup of coffee.
“I believe we need to stand by a heightened standard. Not what is legal, but what is right. I think it is important that our elected officials that we restore confidence and trust in our elected officials ...You don’t do that through words. You do it through actions. I have delivered on actions in Lackawanna County and I will deliver for people in the 11th District,” O’Brien said during an interview on his RV in Wilkes-Barre Saturday.
O’Brien also pointed out he’s been fiscally responsible as a county commissioner because he was successful in balancing the Lackawanna County budget without raising taxes.
O’Brien resides in Moosic with his wife, Michelle, and their children, 6-year old Kate and 4-year old Casey.
Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, won his U.S. House of Representatives’ seat in 1984 and has won retention in every election since. Kanjorski has not officially announced his candidacy.
