Mary Gay Scanlon | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Official portrait, 2018 | |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromPennsylvania | |
| Assumed office November 13, 2018 | |
| Preceded by | Pat Meehan |
| Constituency |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | (1959-08-30)August 30, 1959 (age 66) Syracuse, New York, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | Mark Stewart |
| Children | 3 |
| Education | Colgate University (BA) University of Pennsylvania (JD) |
| Signature |  |
| Website | House website Campaign website |
Scanlon supporting extended restaurant aid following theCOVID-19 pandemic. Recorded April 6, 2022 | |
Mary Gay Scanlon (born August 30, 1959) is an American attorney and politician. A member of theDemocratic Party, she has representedPennsylvania's 5th congressional district in theUnited States House of Representatives since 2019. The district is based inDelaware County, a mostly suburban county west ofPhiladelphia, and also includes a southwestern portion of Philadelphia itself as well as slivers ofChester andMontgomery counties. Scanlon spent the final two months of 2018 as the member forPennsylvania's 7th congressional district. She was elected to both positions on November 6, 2018. That day, she ran in a special election in the old 7th to serve out the term of her predecessor,Pat Meehan, and in a regular election for a full two-year term in the new 5th. She was sworn in as the member for the 7th on November 13, 2018, and transferred to the 5th on January 3, 2019.
Scanlon was born inSyracuse, New York.[1] She is the daughter of Daniel Scanlon and Carol Florence Yehle, and has two sisters, Elizabeth Maura Scanlon and M. Kathleen Scanlon. Her father was an attorney and was appointed part-time US magistrate in 1971 and full-time US magistrate in 1993.[2] Her mother, Carol Florence Yehle, was an English professor at Jefferson Community College inWatertown, New York. Her maternal grandfather, Leo J. Yehle, was a family-court judge who helped write the first juvenile justice code in New York in the 1960s.[3]
Scanlon earned herBachelor of Arts degree fromColgate University in 1980, and she received herJuris Doctor from theUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School in 1984. Upon completing her education, she became ajudicial law clerk for Judge J. Sydney Hoffman of theSuperior Court of Pennsylvania.[4]
In 1985, Scanlon represented a sexually abused 11-year-old girl in a dependency case. This experience made Scanlon decide to pursue a career inpublic interest law. In 1994, she received the Fidelity Award, the highest award for public service from the Philadelphia Bar Association.[3]
Scanlon served as an attorney with the Education Law Center of Philadelphia, helping implement special education laws, before joiningBallard Spahr aspro bono counsel. There she helped coordinate the provision of free legal services to low-income recipients. She partnered with the Wills for Heroes Foundation, providing legal documents free of charge to first responders. She helped a young woman from Guinea who had sickle-cell disease obtain permanent residency.[3]
In 2006, she was appointed vice chair of the Tax Commission.[4] The following year, she joined the board of theWallingford-Swarthmore School District[5] and served as its president from 2009 to 2011.[4][6] She continued as a member of the board until 2015.[5]
On February 25, 2018, Scanlon launched her campaign for US Congress in Pennsylvania's 5th district in the 2018 election. The district had previously been the 7th, represented by four-term RepublicanPat Meehan, who had announced a month earlier that he was not running for reelection. She kicked off the campaign by giving a speech at Swarthmore Rutledge School. The seat was one of several that had been significantly redrawn by thePennsylvania Supreme Court, which ruled that the previous map had been an unconstitutional partisan Republican gerrymander. The redrawn 5th covers all of Delaware County, slivers ofMontgomery andChester counties, and the southwestern corner of Philadelphia, including the areas around theSouth Philadelphia Sports Complex andPhiladelphia International Airport.[7] Scanlon said that her interest in running was also piqued by the fact that Pennsylvania had no women in its congressional delegation.[8] She was endorsed by former Pennsylvania governorEd Rendell and thePhiladelphia Inquirer.[6]
On May 15, Scanlon won the 10-person primary with 16,831 votes, or a 28.4% share of the votes cast. Her closest competitor was formerAssistant United States Attorney forUnited States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Ashley Lunkenheimer, who received 9,060 votes or a 15.3% share.[9] "Tonight we can revel in this moment," Scanlon said in her acceptance of the Democratic nomination. "You all here have once again rewritten history in Delaware County. Tonight, we made it possible for this new district for the first time to be represented by a Democrat in Congress and to be represented by a woman in Congress."[10] The new 5th is more compact and Democratic than its predecessor. Had it existed in 2016,Hillary Clinton would have won it with 63% of the vote, which would have been her third-best performance in the state and her strongest outside of the Philadelphia-based districts.[11] By comparison, Clinton won the old 7th with 49% of the vote.[12]
Meehan resigned from the House on April 27, 2018, a month before the primary. Scanlon was named the Democratic candidate in a special election to succeed him.[13] As a result, she ran in two elections on November 6, a special election for the balance of Meehan's fourth term in the old 7th and a regular election for a full two-year term in the new 5th. Her Republican opponent was prosecutor Pearl Kim.
On November 6, Scanlon defeated Kim in both the special and regular elections.[14] The margin was much closer in the special election for the 7th district because it took place under the old district lines that had been thrown out by the state supreme court earlier in the year.
She was sworn into her 7th district seat on November 13, 2018,[15] in a ceremony attended byHawa Salih, a Sudanese human rights activist whom Scanlon helped gain asylum in the U.S. She was one of four Democratic women elected to Congress from Pennsylvania in 2018. The others wereMadeleine Dean,Chrissy Houlahan andSusan Wild. The state's congressional delegation had previously been all male.[16] She is only the third Democrat to represent this district and its predecessors since 1939.
On November 3, 2020, Scanlon defeated Republican nomineeDasha Pruett with 64.7% of the vote (255,743 votes) to Pruett's 35.3% (139,552).[17]
She transferred to the 5th district in January 2019, with two months' more seniority than the other freshmen elected in 2018.
As of late 2024, Scanlon had sponsored 51 bills[18] and co-sponsored 1,572 bills in Congress.[19] In addition, she had sponsored 38 resolutions[20] and co-sponsored 201 resolutions.[21]
Bills that Scanlon sponsored fell in the following categories:
In the 118th Congress, Scanlon sponsored the following bills:
In 2023, Scanlon was among 50 Democrats to vote to remove American troops from Somalia by voting for H.Con.Res. 30.[22][23] Scanlon was among 56 Democrats to vote in favor of H.Con.Res. 21 which directed PresidentJoe Biden to remove U.S. troops fromSyria within 180 days.[24][25]
A member of theIrish-American community in Pennsylvania, Scanlon is a member of theCongressional Friends of Ireland Caucus and traveled withPresident Joe Biden to Ireland in 2023.[26]
Source:[27]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Mary Gay Scanlon | 16,804 | 28.4 | |
| Democratic | Ashley Lunkenheimer | 9,044 | 15.3 | |
| Democratic | Richard Lazer | 8,892 | 15.0 | |
| Democratic | Molly Sheehan | 6,099 | 10.3 | |
| Democratic | Greg Vitali | 5,558 | 9.4 | |
| Democratic | Lindy Li | 4,126 | 7.0 | |
| Democratic | Theresa Wright | 3,046 | 5.2 | |
| Democratic | Thaddeus Kirkland | 2,327 | 3.9 | |
| Democratic | Margo L. Davidson | 2,275 | 3.9 | |
| Democratic | Larry Arata | 913 | 1.5 | |
| Total votes | 59,084 | 100.0 | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Mary Gay Scanlon | 198,639 | 65.2 | |
| Republican | Pearl Kim | 106,075 | 34.8 | |
| Total votes | 304,714 | 100.0 | ||
| Democraticgain fromRepublican | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Mary Gay Scanlon | 173,268 | 52.27% | +11.47% | |
| Republican | Pearl Kim | 152,503 | 46.01% | −13.46% | |
| Libertarian | Sandra Teresa Salas | 3,177 | 0.96% | N/A | |
| Green | Brianna Johnston | 2,511 | 0.76% | N/A | |
| Total votes | 331,459 | 100.0% | N/A | ||
| Democraticgain fromRepublican | |||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Mary Gay Scanlon | 255,743 | 64.7 | |
| Republican | Dasha Pruett | 139,552 | 35.3 | |
| Total votes | 395,295 | 100.0 | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Mary Gay Scanlon | 205,128 | 65.1 | |
| Republican | David Galluch | 110,058 | 34.9 | |
| Total votes | 315,186 | 100.0 | ||
| Democratichold | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Mary Gay Scanlon | 262,449 | 65.1 | |
| Republican | Alfeia Goodwin | 140,725 | 34.9 | |
| Total votes | 403,174 | 100.0 | ||
| Democratichold | ||||
According to theDelaware County Daily Times, Scanlon's policy interests "include the need for fair elections; challenges to free speech; access to health care and public education; human rights for the victims of economic and political oppression; gun control; and threats to the environment."[8] She is in favor of universal pre-K and supportsmarijuana decriminalization. In order to reduce the federal deficit, Scanlon wants to roll backTax Cuts and Jobs Act. On the subject of a $15 minimum wage, she says she likes it "as a goal, but I do think we need to be careful and probably stage it."[6] In 2025, following theSupreme Court's denial to hearErmold v. Davis, a case which sought to overturnObergefell v. Hodges, Scanlon, in response to the question "Did you hear the Supreme Court rejected Kim Davis's petition to overturnObergefell?”, replied: "Yes, I did. Yes. That was the best news we've had out of the Supreme Court in quite a while."[32][better source needed]
Scanlon lives inSwarthmore with her husband, Mark Stewart. They have three adult children.[33] Scanlon isRoman Catholic and can trace her ancestry back toBallybunion inCounty Kerry,Ireland.[34][35]
Scanlon was the victim of acarjacking on December 22, 2021, during which she was robbed at gunpoint. The crime took place inSouth Philadelphia, after Scanlon finished touringFranklin Delano Roosevelt Park that day. She was physically unharmed.[36] TheDelaware State Police and theFederal Bureau of Investigation recovered Scanlon's car later in the day inNew Castle County, Delaware, near theChristiana Mall.[37] Five people, who were inside the car when police found it, were taken into custody about six hours after the carjacking.[38][39][40]
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromPennsylvania's 7th congressional district 2018–2019 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromPennsylvania's 5th congressional district 2019–present | Incumbent |
| U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial) | ||
| Preceded by | United States representatives by seniority 189th | Succeeded by |
| People | |
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| Other | |
