One voice might sound timid, but all of our voices together can topple any harmful power structure and start the process of creating policies that reflect community need.
ABOUT COLLEEN KENNEDY
Colleen Kennedy is a first-term Democratic State Committee Member representing Delaware County, Pennsylvania. They are running for re-election for another term. Born and raised in Upper Darby, Colleen learned from a very early age that we are only as strong as our most vulnerable neighbor, and that community is everything. Colleen attended Upper Darby School District schools, Delaware County Community College (while they figured out what they wanted to do for a career), and then later, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, where they studied political science, public policy, and peace and conflict studies. Mirroring their early activism as a public school student, Colleen studied the history of racial segregation in public schools for their senior thesis.
Colleen is a 2018 graduate of the Campaign School at Yale, and has attended countless educational programs for political and nonprofit leaders through Young Involved Philadelphia, the Center for Progressive Leadership, and Arena, just to name a few. They have led earned media strategy to protect the Affordable Care Act from repeal during the first Trump term, have championed accountability for police departments that have violated the public trust, and in their spare time, they can be found reading a book at a coffee shop with their service dog, Josie.
In recent years, Colleen has managed the digital infrastructure and strategy of a statewide nonprofit combatting the gun violence epidemic, has implemented earned, owned, and paid media communications in the civic engagement space, and has achieved several electoral victories, including the Red to Blue flip of Pennsylvania’s 163rd State Legislative District in 2018 and their own election to the Pennsylvania Democratic State committee in 2022. Most recently, Colleen served for three years as the national organizing associate and then senior national organizing associate at Supermajority Education Fund, a national organization that mobilized millions of young women to cast ballots in elections up and down the ballot. Their role centered not only on the political strategies to mobilize women who have had plenty of reasons to not feel motivated to vote in elections, but to train staff and volunteers from across the country to advance their own political leadership. They have led and developed national calls and trainings on everything from disability justice, the genocide in Palestine, bail reform, and everything in between.
Colleen currently is serving several clients in the non profit, electoral, and small business space to grow their impact while receiving medical treatment for their POTS, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and heart arrhythmias. During their next term, if re-elected, or as a community leader, Colleen plans to strengthen their connections with political strategists, campaign staffers, and Democratic Party leaders to advance progressive reform through public policy, wherever such opportunities currently exist.
If people are being harmed, it is time to speak up with all of your might.
Dear Democratic Committee Member:
I am asking for your support as I run for a second term as a Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee member, representing Delaware County. During my first term, I was proud to have the opportunity to use my voice to speak up on the issue of school voucher policies, which some of our Democratic elected officials were tempted to support. These policies dedicate precious tax dollars toward educational institutions that do not guarantee the federal protections of disabled students, queer and trans students, students of religious minorities, students of color, and economically disadvantaged students. Furthermore, there is a wide breadth of research that shows that these educational institutions provide weakened results for our students. When this particular issue crossed my desk, using my voice was an easy decision. My values and my lived experience guide me to support and defend public education at every opportunity. It was the earliest cause I connected to as a political organizer, as a middle school student. Although it is very difficult to get resolutions passed within state committee meetings, the conversation was started, and it allowed me to meet so many people from across Pennsylvania, from rural, suburban, and urban communities, from every lived experience, who also felt it was an easy decision to speak out about this issue. Our work was written about by journalists, and it greatly affected the discourse that was happening during budget negotiations in Harrisburg. Sometimes, because we think we can’t win the “grand prize” of a particular policy victory in the short term, we fail to even speak out at all, and those who abuse their power are counting on us to fall for this false narrative.
I am running for a second term as a state committee member for Delaware County because the work is far from done. Our neighbors are being kidnapped, abused, and even killed by ICE. The queer and trans community, of which I am a member, is being targeted through bigoted policies by the Trump administration, and as a disabled person, I can tell you firsthand that the last year has been a grueling experience. Trying to pay for medications, see doctors, or even be safe out in public spaces has become a constant struggle, in large part due to the targeting of chronically ill and disabled people by the Trump administration. We do ourselves a disservice by pretending that these struggles started with Donald Trump, or fail to acknowledge that there are some Democratic elected officials who share a role in our oppression. Our communities are only as safe and supported as the weakest negotiations led by Democrats, and when a few of our leaders sell members of our community out, they endanger all of us.
I have never shied away from a righteous fight, because even when I am physically exhausted, I have my voice to use. I am asking for your support to go back for another four-year term. We must get through this second Trump term collectively, but we must also fight for a future that is safer and more supportive for all of us than what we had prior to Trump’s entry into the national political environment. We need Medicare For All, a Green New Deal, the PRO Act, accessibility and transit access for all. We need to shut down the private equity interests that are dismantling our hospital systems including here in Delaware County. Housing is a human right, and no politician should be weighing in on any of our medical decisions. We need policies that invest in communities rather than militarize our public spaces and incarcerate our neighbors and family members.
If these are things you want to see from the Democratic Party, send me back. I am working as we speak with advocates and committee members from across the country, so we can push for all of these things from our elected leaders at every level.
Colleen Kennedy (they/them)
Democratic State Committee Member representing Delaware County
PLATFORM
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Housing and food are human rights. Medicare for all is a moderate policy proposal. We are in a climate crisis, and a labor crisis, and the path toward solving both is a Green New Deal and deep investments in training the next generation of workers. The genocides we are witnessing in Palestine and Sudan and as a result of Trump’s illegal gutting of USAID matches the violence that our communities experience here at home. Queer and trans people are beautiful. Disability justice is the root to our collective evolution as a society.
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Getting elected to public office is the beginning of the work, not the prize. Public servants must hold a high standard, and it is your entire job to receive feedback and pressure from the public. We have a crisis of gender-based violence in political spaces, and we are also seeing the Trump administration take the baton in a relay race that has been going on for years among both political parties. It’s an agenda that sells out the poor, ingratiates itself to ultra-wealthy donors, and thrives on militarized violence that locks up our neighbors while serving as an excuse to not fund basic programs. Moral clarity is required equipment to be worthy of entering the public arena.
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Every person should have the opportunity to earn a comfortable, living wage. Every person deserves high quality healthcare and the ability to take time to go to the doctor or care for a loved one. Every person deserves the choice whether to start a family and the ability to live comfortably while doing so, if they choose. Every person should have a safe way to travel.
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Disability is the one identity all of us will share at some point in our lives. Every person deserves care, safety, dignity, inclusion, and respect.
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Accountability campaigns against police departments and prisons have yielded minimal results so far because we are still continuing to treat incarceration as a solution to policy problems. Prisons do not rehabilitate human beings. They disappear them. We need deep investments in communities, for families, for young people, and for anyone ignored, silenced, marginalized, or excluded in society.