Director of county Dems brings much experience
A veteran of statewide campaigns joined the Allegheny County Democratic Committee this month as interim executive director.
Steve Kochanowski, 34, of Washington, Pa., said he was politically active even as a teenager growing up in Beaver County, where he became a Democratic committeeman at age 18. Only a brief dalliance with the GOP interrupted his long devotion to the Democratic Party, he said.
He succeeds Mark Salvas, who resigned in October after Facebook posts tied to him drew public rebukes. Critics said the posts — including commentary on the NFL national anthem controversy — incorporated “racist undertones.”
Mr. Kochanowski, a self-described moderate, said he plans to move into Allegheny County shortly.
“I work with everybody from the progressive wing to the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. We’re a big-tent party. We need to be able to accept everybody,” he said. “That’s what the Democratic Party is, and that’s what the Democratic Party should be.”
County committee chair Eileen Kelly appointed him to the paid role, which involves helping elected incumbents, campaigns and hundreds of local committee people to put — and keep — Democrats in office. Mr. Kochanowski is the only person on the county committee payroll, although that may change as Ms. Kelly looks to strengthen the organization, solicitor Jim Burn said.
Mr. Burn didn’t disclose Mr. Kochanowski’s compensation.
“The director is like the head coach on the field,” Mr. Burn said. Mr. Kochanowski “has relationships all across the commonwealth from the campaigns he’s worked on.
“Folks from Washington County to Philadelphia County know him and his work ethic,” Mr. Burn said. “He’s got energy and enthusiasm that motivates others.”
Mr. Kochanowski’s campaign experience includes work with Justice Kevin M. Dougherty, who joined the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2016; Judge Maria McLaughlin, who joined the Pennsylvania Superior Court in 2018; and attorney Clark Mitchell Jr., a Democrat in Washington County who lost a 2018 state House race to Rep. Tim O’Neal. Mr. Kochanowski is a former state Democratic committee member, as well.
Apart from a three-month stint as a Republican in 2012, he has been a Democrat for 16 years, he said. He left the Democratic Party out of anger over the defeat that year of then-U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-McCandless, he said.
Around that time, Mr. Kochanowski told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review he felt the Democratic Party pulled “too far to the left” for him.
His views have since evolved, and he switched quickly back to the Democratic side, he said last week.
“It was just the place where I knew I had to be,” Mr. Kochanowski said. “I realized I could not stand up for the people I need to stand up for in [the Republican] Party.”
As executive director for the Allegheny County committee, he said, his “personal views shouldn’t be part” of his work. “I want to be very clear: I am absolutely, 100 percent with the chair,” Mr. Kochanowski said.
The committee knew about his time as a Republican when he interviewed for the job, Mr. Burn said, who called that history “not a factor here.”
“Having a director who was on the other side brings an additional perspective and variable to their portfolio about how the other side works, how the other side thinks,” Mr. Burn said. “We’re very pleased that Steve saw the error of his ways and came back to the light.”
Nearly 546,650 of Allegheny County’s 941,028 registered voters were Democrats as of early November, according to state data.
Ms. Kelly, reached Sunday, said she expects to decide in about six months whether to make Mr. Kochanowski’s appointment more permanent. The county organization counts more than 2,000 seats for committee people, she said. Their duties include drumming up support for Democratic candidates across a spectrum of elected offices.
Mr. Kochanowski “has done a tremendous job already,” Ms. Kelly said. “He understands, knows and believes, as I do, that the committee people come first.”