Salisbury to try again for Pa. 34th District seat
A Swissvale lawyer and human rights advocate who once fled Ethiopia after being declared an enemy of the state has launched her campaign for the Pennsylvania House, becoming the first candidate to run for outgoing Rep. Summer Lee’s seat.
Abigail Salisbury, a Democratic member of Swissvale’s borough council and former First Amendment law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, won the Allegheny County Democratic Committee’s endorsement for the seat in the May primary but lost by a wide margin to the two-term incumbent, Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee defeated Plum Borough Councilman Mike Doyle in the redrawn 12th Congressional District race on Nov. 8. She will be sworn in as a U.S. Rep. on Jan. 3.
Crumbling bridges and century-old sewage systems mark the district’s towns, which include southeastern Pittsburgh’s suburbs running from Braddock to Wilkinsburg, and highlight the district’s imminent need for state aid, said Ms. Salisbury.
“We really, desperately need somebody to represent us in Harrisburg who will help us with the things that are very pressing in day-to-day life for people who
live here,” Ms. Salisbury said. “It’s just been a ‘let’s kick the can down the road’ type of approach and it’s gotten to the point where there’s no more kicking the can. You’ve got to take care of it now.”
Before moving to Swissvale with her husband in 2015 and starting a solo legal practice focused on nonprofits and small businesses, Ms. Salisbury worked in international human rights law in Kosovo and Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, while teaching law in 2008, she published an article in a University of Pittsburgh legal journal critical of human rights abuses under then-President Meles Zenawi.
The next day, she was fired. Death threats soon followed. A former professor of hers who worked for UNAID as well as U.S. Embassy personnel, called to warn her that some in the country were talking about killing her. Beset by dengue fever, Ms. Salisbury fled the city she was teaching in to stay with friends in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa until she could escape the country.
In Swissvale, Ms. Salisbury led the effort to reform the police hiring process after an East Pittsburgh police officer gunned down 17-yearold Antwon Rose II as he fled a traffic stop in 2018. Under the new process, the entire borough council can interview potential new officers before they’re hired.
Ms. Lee has represented the 34th District since 2018, when she and fellow progressive Democrats were propelled to power at the state and federal levels by a national backlash to former President Donald Trump’s surprise victory two years earlier. She defeated Rep. Paul Costa that year in an May primary upset victory that unseated a 10-term incumbent who hailed from one of the region’s most deeply entrenched political families.
The state will schedule a special election for the 34th District seat after Ms. Lee leaves to join Congress. At the same time, voters in the neighboring 32nd district will have to pick a replacement for longtime Democratic Rep. Anthony DeLuca, who died in October.
Unlike regular elections, where voters choose candidates through primary elections, major-party candidates in special elections are selected by party committees — potentially a key asset for Ms. Salisbury, who already won the Democratic Party’s endorsement once. Another is that she already has a campaign apparatus in place.
“I ran in the primary,” she said. “So I’m ready to go.”