Barletta meets Friday with local Republicans
Speaking at a packed Main Street restaurant Friday, U.S. Senate hopeful Lou Barletta detailed his platform and message for Butler County politicians and business leaders.
Barletta has been in Congress since 2011. He is running for the Republican nomination in the U.S. Senate race against state Rep. Jim Christiana. The winner will take on incumbent Sen. Bob Casey in November.
Current and former commissioners, Butler city council members, business leaders and Republican Party members gathered at Shelly's Main Street Grille to meet with Barletta, who shared stories of his time as Hazleton's mayor, his business background and details of his platform.
Barletta said he makes it a point to get out into the communities to get to know people and listen to the issues of his constituents.
“That's what it is all about,” he said. “Everybody just wants to make their community better, and sometimes you just need to know that you have somebody to go to for help or at least cares.”
As a businessman, he said “This is the last thing I ever thought I'd be doing. I hated politics growing up.”
But because of issues he identified within his community in Luzerne County, he ran and was elected for city council, and eventually became mayor. While serving as mayor, Barletta said he turned a budget deficit into a surplus, with businesses and people moving back into the city. But a more serious problem soon came to light, when Barletta said he discovered that his community, 2,000 miles from the southern border, was experiencing problems stemming from illegal immigration.
In response, he signed the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which allowed the city to deny a business permit to employers who hired illegal immigrants and gave the city authority to fine landlords up to $1,000 for leasing to illegal immigrants, among other provisions.
“I realized that Washington was broke,” he said. Barletta currently sits on the Homeland Security, Transportation and Infrastructure and Education and the Workforce committees.
When Donald Trump began his campaign for president, Barletta said he was “all in.”
“I didn't want another politician,” he said, describing how he served on Trump's Pennsylvania campaign and transition team, before saying he got a call from Trump urging him to run for the Senate seat.
He said his opponent, Bob Casey, who has spent 12 years in the Senate, has “given us ObamaCare, votes against tax cuts and supports Sanctuary Cities.”
Barletta told the Butler Eagle that he believes his message will resonate with Butler County voters.
“I get a sense being here that it's almost as if this is where I come from,” he said. “Being a mayor of a small town like Hazelton you get to keep a thumb on the pulse of the people in the community. I relate to that, I relate to their issues, what they are trying to do. Washington doesn't relate to that.”
He said Casey “has resisted, rejected and obstructed anything the president has done so far” and Barletta plans to “help the president achieve the agenda he campaigned on.”
Jim Hulings, current chair of the Butler County Republican Committee, said it was great to have Barletta come to Butler.
“I think he will be well received,” he said. “He has all the same things that we love, he checks off every box.”
Hulings said Butler is a major Republican hub, and it is good to see that attention is being paid to the area.
“You know Butler County is the heartbeat of the Republican Party,” he said. “We have a lot of moral Republicans here ... everybody thinks it all goes on over in Philadelphia, but we need the attention, we need the good roads, the good schools, they need to start shifting some of that money over this way.”
Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe, who helped organize the event, said Shelly's was chosen because it represented the Main Street feel of the city, and the owner's husband and two sons are currently serving in the Marines.
