Blog - A Bucks educator’s petition asks PSEA to take back its Fitzpatrick endorsement

A former Central Bucks school board member is asking the Pennsylvania State Education Association to take back its endorsement of Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, and nearly 300 people have signed on in three days.

Tabitha Dell'Angelo, now dean of the School of Education at The College of New Jersey, filed the Change.org petition on Oct. 11. It passed 293 verified signatures Tuesday evening, toward a goal of 500. In an update early Tuesday, she said she had sent a letter with the petition link to PSEA's leadership. Two earlier updates tracked the count from 114 to 174 to 216 in the first two days.

PSEA, the largest union in the state, endorsed Fitzpatrick in July through PSEA-PACE and the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education. President Aaron Chapin wrote that Fitzpatrick had "demonstrated a commitment to collaboration and problem solving." The union says it represents nearly 95 percent of the local school district unions in the 1st District, 11,489 public school employees, retirees and aspiring educators. Fitzpatrick was the only Republican running for federal office that the NEA recommended this year, according to the Inquirer.

His Democratic opponent, Bob Harvie, spent 20 years teaching social studies and chairing the department at Bucks County Technical High School. The American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania endorsed Harvie, as did union locals in the Philadelphia school district and Neshaminy. PSEA went the other way.

The petition points at POLITICO's Sept. 30 reporting that Fitzpatrick's ads quote Patch headlines written by Dave Sommers, a Levittown ally who attended his June wedding and has been paid by his campaign, including $500 in 2022 for "office setup services." Sommers was sentenced to six months in prison in 2019 for trafficking diamondback terrapins. Harvie sent Fitzpatrick a cease-and-desist letter in July and sued the pro-Fitzpatrick Defending America PAC in August.

The petition's own text stays general. It cites "investigative reporting by POLITICO and other credible sources" without naming the reporting or the allegations.

A petition cannot make a union take back an endorsement. What it can measure is the membership: 46 signatures in the past day, three quarters of them from Doylestown, Warrington or Perkasie. PSEA has said nothing publicly since July.