Summer Lee
Office
Running for State Representative, Pennsylvania, District 34 (2018)
Biography
Summer is a lifelong resident of the 34th district, where she grew up in the North Braddock and Rankin neighborhoods and currently resides in Swissvale. She is a proud graduate of Woodland Hills High School, Pennsylvania State University and Howard University School of Law, where she specialized in civil rights and constitutional law. While at Howard, Summer worked with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where she was an Oliver White Hill Fellow, and in the Office of the General Counsel for the District of Columbia Public Schools. She also served as a student attorney in the Howard University School of Law Civil Rights Clinic, representing and assisting clients with civil rights complaints.
Since graduating law school, Summer has been a dedicated organizer, activist, and advocate for social justice. During the 2016 presidential election, she served as a Field Organizer in her home district for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, where she recruited, managed, and led volunteers engaged in direct voter contact. She has also worked in community and labor organizing, advocating for workers’ rights and a $15 minimum wage.
Summer has been a leader in the recent struggles to bring justice to the Woodland Hills School District. During the 2017 primary elections, she spearheaded a successful write-in campaign to bring immediate change to the Woodland Hills School Board after the board’s failure to address repeated instances of violence against students from police officers and schools administrators. She currently serves on the Woodland Hills Commission on Youth Development and Learning, where she has zealously pushed for increased cultural competency training for teaching staff, the elimination of an armed police presence in schools, and a commitment from the district to decreasing the disproportionate punishment of minority children and children with disabilities.
Source: Summer for PA
Priorities
Criminal Justice Reform
Work to end the “school to-prison pipeline.” Our schools need to be a safe space for all students to learn and grow. Our current model of referring children to armed law enforcement on campus, and prosecuting them for schoolyard infractions feeds children into the prison industrial complex and limits their future prospects. Following the model of other states, we must ensure that suspension, expulsion, and incarceration are seen as the absolute last resort, and implement more restorative and effective practices.
Oppose the reinstatement of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Our current representatives have failed to heed the lessons of the past three decades: that the strategy behind the “War on Drugs” is an unmitigated failure that has only torn families and communities apart. Mandatory minimums disproportionately affect black and poor communities, and only hinder efforts to combat the opioid crisis in our communities today. Our family members, friends, and neighbors who suffer from addiction don’t need harsh prison sentences; they need affordable and accessible medical care.
Push for the elimination of cash bail. Our current system, which imprisons people based on their ability to pay, is a barbaric relic of the past. Pennsylvania can and should pass legislation, with bipartisan support, to end the practice of cash bail.
Support a moratorium on new prison construction in Pennsylvania.
Free, High-Quality Public Education, Pre K Through College
Work to end the “school to-prison pipeline.” Our schools need to be a safe space for all students to learn and grow. Our current model of referring children to armed law enforcement on campus, and prosecuting them for schoolyard infractions feeds children into the prison industrial complex and limits their future prospects. Following the model of other states, we must ensure that suspension, expulsion, and incarceration are seen as the absolute last resort, and implement more restorative and effective practices.
Healthcare for All
Access to affordable healthcare is a right that every man, woman and child should have in Pennsylvania. No resident of our state should fear losing coverage because of preexisting conditions, loss of job, daring to create their own business, or aging off of their parent’s insurance. Legislation providing healthcare for all would not just save lives, it would save money.
I support a universal, single-payer system in Pennsylvania that would provide all residents with comprehensive, quality care that would include medical, dental, vision, and mental health care with no co-pays, premiums, and deductions. By streamlining the current system, single-payer - also known as “Medicare for All” - would actually cost the residents of Pennsylvania less, while providing them with more.
Economy & Labor
Continue to fight for a $15 minimum wage, which is long overdue. We must move toward a world where all workers are paid a decent living wage.
Use the power of my office to support my constituents’ right and ability to unionize.
Support investments in our state’s infrastructure. Spending on our roads, bridges, public transit, and ports creates good union jobs and improves our quality of life in the short term, and encourages sustainable economic growth in the long term.
Rebuild our system of public higher education. Education and economics cannot be separated. A long-term investment in our workforce is the single best investment Pennsylvania can make.
A "Millionaire's Tax"
Deep inequality has been baked into our state’s Constitution. Under the so-called “uniformity clause”, Pennsylvania is prohibited from levying higher income tax rates on high earners, creating an absurd situation where poor families facing a higher tax burden, by percentage, than do the richest among us. This has resulted in Pennsylvania having the fifth most regressive tax system in the nation.
This must be addressed, if we are to sustainably fund progressive priorities. We must unite, across Pennsylvania, to amend our constitution to allow for a progressive income tax. This will reduce our disproportionate reliance on property taxes, sales taxes, and other regressive taxes that are currently many localities’ only real revenue option.
In the interim, I am a strong supporter of the “Fair Share Tax”, which would place a higher tax rate on income from wealth (capital gains, dividends, etc) and could be accomplished without a constitutional amendment.
Environmental Justice
A moratorium on fracking. Fracking poses unacceptable health risks, particularly to children and infants. I am deeply opposed to the proposed fracking site at the Edgar Thomson Steel Mill.
Full state funding of lead water line replacement. It is unacceptable that our children are exposed to lead daily. We can and must guarantee clean water for all; the state is where the financial resources exist to make this happen.
No cracker plants in SWPA. The proposed ethane cracker in Beaver County poses dangerous risks to the entire region's air quality; 3-5 such plants in the region would be unthinkable. There are few better examples of the shortsightedness of our political leadership, and I will lead the charge in the Legislature against the cracker.
Restoring the Department of Environmental Protection's funding to pre-Corbett levels. Our regulators do not have the resources needed to enforce pollution limits already on the books.
Transitioning to 100% renewable energy across Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania could lead the way on renewable energy; our solar sector is already outpacing the nation. Renewable energy is good for the environment and the economy.
Defending Women's Rights
Support universal childcare. Too many women in Pennsylvania are forced to make impossible choices, thanks to a lack of affordable childcare options. High-quality, universal childcare is within our reach.
Defend access to reproductive healthcare, including the right to an abortion.
Support the Pennsylvania Agenda for Women’s Health. Pennsylvania’s record on women’s healthcare is appalling, one of the worst in the nation. I will fight for this vital package of bills pertaining to women’s healthcare.
LGBTQ Rights
The struggle for LGBTQ rights is among the defining civil rights issues of our time. Pennsylvania, lagging behind the rest of the nation, has no statewide law preventing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity - for employment, housing, public accommodations, and more.
I will work tirelessly to remediate this injustice, and am a strong supporter of the PA Fairness Act.
Source: Summer for PA
Summer Lee
.
Office
Running for State Representative, Pennsylvania, District 34 (2018)
Biography
Summer is a lifelong resident of the 34th district, where she grew up in the North Braddock and Rankin neighborhoods and currently resides in Swissvale. She is a proud graduate of Woodland Hills High School, Pennsylvania State University and Howard University School of Law, where she specialized in civil rights and constitutional law. While at Howard, Summer worked with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where she was an Oliver White Hill Fellow, and in the Office of the General Counsel for the District of Columbia Public Schools. She also served as a student attorney in the Howard University School of Law Civil Rights Clinic, representing and assisting clients with civil rights complaints.
Since graduating law school, Summer has been a dedicated organizer, activist, and advocate for social justice. During the 2016 presidential election, she served as a Field Organizer in her home district for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, where she recruited, managed, and led volunteers engaged in direct voter contact. She has also worked in community and labor organizing, advocating for workers’ rights and a $15 minimum wage.
Summer has been a leader in the recent struggles to bring justice to the Woodland Hills School District. During the 2017 primary elections, she spearheaded a successful write-in campaign to bring immediate change to the Woodland Hills School Board after the board’s failure to address repeated instances of violence against students from police officers and schools administrators. She currently serves on the Woodland Hills Commission on Youth Development and Learning, where she has zealously pushed for increased cultural competency training for teaching staff, the elimination of an armed police presence in schools, and a commitment from the district to decreasing the disproportionate punishment of minority children and children with disabilities.
Source: Summer for PA
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Priorities
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