WILKES BARRE, Penn. – Democrat Paul Kanjorski, the sponsor of key credit union legislation in Congress, survived a close race yesterday to win a 13th term in the House.
The narrow margin over Republican Lou Barletta, just 52% to 48%, came after dozens of credit union volunteers fanned out through the state’s 11th House district and the Pennsylvania CU Association flooded the district with pro-Kanjorski mailings in the campaign’s closing days to help boost the congressional credit union champion.
Credit union executives from all over the country also poured campaign contributions into Kanjorski’s race, more than $100,000, the most of any race in the country. A September letter from California CU League President Bill Cheney, for example, soliciting contributions from credit union executives in California and Nevada, and a fundraiser at NAFCU’s annual Congressional caucus the same month, raised thousands for the Kanjorski campaign.
Kanjorski, the chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises, also had major help in the final days from interests before his committee, like the National Realtors, the big banks, insurance companies and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which poured millions of dollars into the race to save one of the few endangered Democrats.
Kanjorski has established himself as the most reliable advocate for credit unions in Congress by sponsoring HR 1151, the CU Membership Access Act, and more recently, the CU Regulatory Improvements Act, better known as CURIA.
But even though he beat Barletta easily in 2004, Kanjorski battled a tailwind in recent weeks as the mayor of Hazleton benefitted from a national reputation as a foe of illegal immigration by virtue of a city ordinance he passed to bar illegal immigrants from working or renting in the city.
