| Daylin Leach | |
|---|---|
| Member of the Pennsylvania Senate from the 17th district |
|
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 3, 2009 |
|
| Preceded by | Connie Williams |
| Constituency | Parts of Delaware and Montgomery Counties |
| Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from the 149th district |
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| In office January 7, 2003[1] – November 30, 2008 |
|
| Preceded by | Wallis Brooks |
| Succeeded by | Tim Briggs |
| Constituency | Part of Montgomery County |
| Personal details | |
| Born | June 23, 1961 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Jennifer Anne Mirak |
| Children | Brennan Alice, Justin Robert |
| Residence | Wayne, Pennsylvania |
| Alma mater | Temple University University of Houston Law Center |
| Profession | Attorney |
| Religion | Reform Judaism |
| Signature | |
Daylin Leach (born June 23, 1961) is a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania State Senate who has represented the 17th senatorial district since 2009. He was previously a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, representing the 149th district from 2003 to 2009.
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Leach graduated from Parkland High School in 1979, and received a B.A. in political science from Temple University in 1983 and a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center in 1986. He practiced law for 16 years, focusing on family and education law. He taught constitutional law, legal ethics and First Amendment law as an adjunct professor at Cedar Crest College and Muhlenberg College.
Leach served as president of the Pennsylvania Young Democrats in the early 1990s and on the Allentown Zoning Board from 1990 to 1994. He previously co-hosted a weekly political TV debate show. He has described his political views as "progressive for the most part."[2]
Leach first ran for the 149th legislative district in a special election on February 12, 2002 following the resignation of Democrat Connie Williams. Leach narrowly lost that election to Republican Wallis Brooks.[3] In the November 2002 rematch of their February special election, the Brooks campaign sent dozens of direct mail advertisements, including one accusing Leach of defending child molesters as an attorney.[4] On the Saturday before the election, one was sent to voters accusing Leach, a practicing Jew who lost family in the Holocaust, of being anti-Semitic.[4] The mailer carried a bold headline of "Anti-Semitism, Neo-Nazism, Holocaust Denial. They are not 'a big joke.'"[4] The incendiary charges stemmed from Leach's 1999 defense of an in absentia client from Texas who was sued in Allentown, Pennsylvania for comments allegedly made in an Internet chat room.[4][5] Following the dismissal, the plaintiff took to the internet and posted diatribes denouncing Leach and the Texas man as anti-Semites that were unearthed by a Brooks researcher and used in the mailer.[4] "She had to know I was Jewish, because it had come up in a debate. But since I have a non-Jewish surname, she apparently thought she could get away with this," Leach said.[4] The campaign immediately convinced a local Jewish newspaper to denounce the mailer and reproduced the article on a flyer with a profile of Leach, emphasizing his Jewish roots and activism, on the reverse.[4] By election day, 70 volunteers had hand-delivered the literature to most district households.[4] Leach won the election by over 1,000 votes.
In 2003, the political website PoliticsPA named him to "The Best of the Freshman Class" list, saying that he "has all the ingredients of a rising star" and that he "makes the job look fun."[6]
In August 2005, Daylin Leach published an op-ed article in the Philadelphia Inquirer blasting the paper's coverage of the 2005 Pennsylvania General Assembly pay raise controversy.[7] In what the Philadelphia City Paper called "the paper's first round against Leach," Inquirer columnist John Grogan responded by accusing Leach of "funny math."[8] In response, Leach "struck back" against the Inquirer with a satirical email to associates under the pseudonym "Dutch Larooo" skewering Inquirer reporter Mario F. Cattabiani.[9][10]
On September 1, 2005, Mario F. Cattabiani published a front page article in the Philadelphia Inquirer that "exposed" Daylin Leach's long-standing and satirical blog "leachvent.com."[10][11] The Philadelphia City Paper blasted the Inquirer for allowing Cattabiani to "answer his attacker" though a trumped-up news article, noting that "thousands of insiders have laughed at Leach's satire for years," but the Inquirer acted as though it had been "recently discovered."[10] The Philadelphia City Paper noted that Cattabiani's article incorrectly characterized Leach's website as a "blog" rather than satire and had focused on Leach's pseudonym's "impure thoughts," while ignoring the "satirical attack" on his Cattabiani's reporting.[10] The next day, Leach removed his website, allowing Cattabiani to "regurgitates the same spicy bits" in two subsequent front page stories.[10][12][13] John Grogan jumped in declaring that Leach had "dug his own political grave."[10][14] The Philadelphia City Paper criticized this fury of negative articles about Leach by noting that "hidden behind the newspaper's florid obsession with Leach's naughty bits, is the state rep's pointed satire of their mediocre coverage — a criticism that the newspaper never addresses...The Inquirer savaged this young legislator because his satire was hitting its mark: Them."[10]
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Daylin_Leach Daylin Leach] at Wikimedia Commons
| Pennsylvania State Senate | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Constance Williams |
Member of the Pennsylvania Senate for the 17th District 2009 – present |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
| Pennsylvania House of Representatives | ||
| Preceded by Wallis Brooks |
Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the 149th District 2003 – 2009 |
Succeeded by Tim Briggs |