ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s 16th Senate District will see a new senator next year, but it remains to be seen if he’ll be a fiscal conservative pushing for school choice programs or a progressive who is called for reforming the criminal justice system.
On this election day, district voters will choose between Republican Jarrett Coleman, a Parkland School Board director, and Democrat Mark Pinsley, the Lehigh County controller.
The newly redrawn district covers the northern half of Bucks County and much of suburban Lehigh County.
- Pennsylvania's 16th Senate District race is a matchup between Republican Jarrett Coleman and Democrat Mark Pinsley
- Coleman, a Parkland School Board director, has campaigned around term limits and ending lawmaker pensions
- Pinsley, the Lehigh County controller, said restoring faith in elections is one of his top priorities
Coleman, of Upper Macungie Township, entered politics last year when he won a seat on the Parkland School Board. He ran on a campaign criticizing school officials for their actions during the height of the pandemic, saying they overstepped by mandating online classes and masking policies once in-person lessons returned.
When the board voted in February to make masks optional, he voted against it, saying he would not support any policy that allowed children to wear masks in school.
Coleman then shocked Pennsylvania’s political establishment by defeating state Sen. Pat Browne in the Republican primary by about 30 votes.
As chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Browne is perhaps the Lehigh Valley’s most powerful official in Harrisburg, but he’d never faced a conservative challenger over his 28 years as a state lawmaker.
Coleman attacked him in campaign ads that depicted him as a career politician who had spent far too much time in office.
Even with Browne ousted, Coleman has continued to make the fight against career politicians in Harrisburg one of his top priorities. He’s called for instituting term limits on state lawmakers and supports ending pensions for elected officials.
He also supports a bipartisan effort to add a ban on gifts for Pennsylvania’s elected officials. Pennsylvania is one of the few states in the country that does not cap gifts lawmakers can accept, which good government advocates say amounts to legal bribery.
Coleman did not respond to texts or calls seeking an interview Friday.
On his campaign website, Coleman says Pennsylvania has a spending problem — a philosophy he has backed with his votes as a school board member. He voted against the district’s 2022-23 budget, which contained a 1.2% tax hike, as well as the 0.1 of a mill tax supporting the Parkland Community Library, according to the Lehigh Valley Press.
This month, he voted against an $80,000 scoreboard that supporters argued would pay for itself within six years through advertising revenue.
On the campaign trail, Coleman has called for revolutionizing the state’s system for the education funding by linking money to students rather than school districts. That would allow families to pay for private, charter or religious school education with tax dollars.
That language mirrors the talking points of school voucher advocates, including Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. In the primary, most of Coleman’s funding came from political action committees linked to Jeffrey Yass, a Montgomery County billionaire who backs politicians who support voucher programs and charter schools.
Supporters believe such programs would improve education outcomes while decreasing costs. Critics argue the programs would harm public schools by diluting their funding pool.
Meanwhile, Pinsley has become a leading progressive voice in the Lehigh Valley.
The owner of the skin care company Permamed Solutions, Pinsley first entered local politics in 2017 when he was elected to the South Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners. In 2018, he lost a close race against Browne for the 16th District before defeating Republican Glenn Eckhart in the 2019 Lehigh County controller race.
Pinsley has focused his attention on topics not typically associated with the controller, who acts as the county’s fiscal watchdog.
He has been a vocal advocate for criminal justice reform, working with the Lehigh Valley chapter of Black Lives Matter to promote changes in use-of-force policy in Allentown. He has also used his office to advocate for changes to Lehigh County’s bail system, issuing a report that found racial discrepancies in how long people are incarcerated in the county jail.
His efforts have drawn the ire of District Attorney Jim Martin, who has accused him of misusing his office to pursue a political agenda. Pinsley contends his office allows him to review and audit jail operations, including bail.
Pinsley also has focused on other civil rights issues. He’s called for state legislation that would outlaw discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community. On his website, Pinsley recognizes abortion access as a civil right that needs to be protected. During a debate Thursday, he backed the protections currently enforced by state law, which bans most abortions after 24 weeks.
In an interview Friday, Pinsley identified restoring faith in Pennsylvania’s elections as among his top priorities. He noted that Pennsylvania saw just three cases of fraud in 2020 and said he believes the issue is largely one of perception. Still, with so many people questioning the integrity of the democratic process, lawmakers need to act, he said.
“We need to make sure everybody believes in the election.”Mark Pinsley (D), Lehigh County controller
Pinsley called for stronger fines and punishments for people convicted of voter fraud. He also said he would be willing to entertain a voter ID law, though he said he did not have a definitive plan he supported at this point. College students, he said, can easily get their hands on fake driver’s licenses to sneak into bars, so he questioned the wisdom of using driver’s licenses.
“We need to make sure everybody believes in the election,” he said. “I just want to get to the place where we all agree [on] what the risks are. Let’s figure that out together.”
