Lindy Li ’12 withdraws from Congressional race

Democrat Lindy Li ’12 has withdrawn from Pennsylvania’s sixth District Congressional race, following a verdict from the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania last Friday.

Li had been contesting Chester County businessman Mike Parrish for the Democratic nomination in order to face Republican incumbent Ryan Costello in the 2016 November election. As a 25-year-old, she would have become the youngest female representative in Congress if she were to have been elected.

However, after Parrish filed a challenge against Li’s nominating petitions, the Commonwealth Court decided in a three-day hearing that Li did not meet the minimum number of valid signatures needed.

In the state of Pennsylvania, each Congressional candidate must submit 1,000 signatures in order to appear on the April 26 primary ballots. Each petition, which contains 30 signatures, has to be signed and stamped by a notary public in order to be considered valid in the court of law.

It is common for nomination petitions to contain many errors, which is why most candidates work towards attaining as many as two or three times the 1,000-signature minimum. According to Li, she had collected 2,740. However, the notary public’s failure to both stamp and sign a number of petitions, along with the accumulation of those small errors, placed her nomination below the legal requirement.

“We summoned [the notary public] to court in hopes that he would be able to use evidence that he was actually there, but he did not keep a proper notary log…thus dooming a couple hundred lines,” Li said, “It’s just devastating that [my campaign] had all been decided on a technicality.”

Li immigrated to the United States from China when she was five years old, moving to the sixth District of Pennsylvania, where she lived for 15 years.

She commented that she had always planned on running for office in her home county before allies of Mike Parrish requested that she instead campaign in the seventh district of Pennsylvania. However, leaders in Washington, DC and across Pennsylvania who viewed the sixth district as a much more winnable election for Democrats prompted Li to switch back to the sixth district just three months ago.

Parrish’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Despite these setbacks, Li, who lamented that she was also leading in the district polls for the sixth district’s primary — is very motivated to continue a career in public office after resigning from her job as a financial analyst for Morgan Stanley last year.

“I will be running again,” she affirmed, though it remains to be seen if she will run again in the sixth district specifically.

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Li shared a story from the hearing in which a judge came up to her and expressed that he had never been so moved by an election case as this one, due to Li’s outward desire to be able to serve the community. The judge, who was a Republican, told Li that her political career is a war, and this is just a small battle.

“I just remember walking home with my mom hand-in-hand, and I haven’t held her hand in years,” Li said. “It was simultaneously the best and worst week of my life.”

Though she did not specifically declare whether or not she would run again in the Pennsylvania sixth District, Li mentioned the multitude of issues facing her home county.“Job opportunities, college affordability, high-quality education… we didn’t have a budget in Pennsylvania until a few weeks ago, so our public schools weren’t publicly funded… These kids are the future, and I’m a proud product of the public school system.”

Li also mentioned that she will now work hard to support many of the female candidates running for Congress this coming year. As she noted, “There is not a single woman representing us in Congress and the Senate in the state of Pennsylvania, leaving six million women without a voice in Washington.”

As a first-generation Chinese-American, Li expressed her desire to demonstrate to America that being Chinese-American does not make her any less American.

“I would die for this country; I would do anything for this country,” she said.

Li emphasized that her main agenda will not change as she continues to battle for middle-class and working-class families.

“These people are the bedrock of our beautiful country, and you have to take care of them… but obviously now the money in their pockets is shrinking,” she said. She explained that there is a lot to be done, but that this work will not stop simply because someone beat her in a campaign.

Li shared her belief that the most pressing issue facing Congress is campaign finance, which is at the root of so many problems.

“I’d love to do something about climate change, but I can’t because big oil firms are in the way; I’d love to do something about gun violence, but I can’t because the NRA is in the way… There’s a special interest that defies progress on so many fronts.”

Vincent Galko, senior adviser to Costello’s campaign, responded with words of sympathy towards Lindy Li and her recent withdrawal from the race.

“It was encouraging to see an ambitious young professional woman running for elected office,” said Galko. “It is unfortunate Miss Li did not meet the legal threshold to be on the ballot.”

With regards to Costello’s current reelection campaign, Galko added, “Congressman Ryan Costello will continue to work for bipartisan solutions to the problems facing our nation, including the cost and quality of our education system and more economic opportunities for recent college graduates.”

Li is currently in her eighth year serving as Princeton Class of 2012 President, having maintained the position since her freshman year. She was a Philosophy concentrator at the University.