The congresswoman from the 13th District is Allyson Schwartz, a Democrat elected in 2004. She leveraged her considerable professional expertise on health-care issues into an influential role in the 2010 health care debate, and also has emerged as a Democratic political strategist. Read More

The congresswoman from the 13th District is Allyson Schwartz, a Democrat elected in 2004. She leveraged her considerable professional expertise on health-care issues into an influential role in the 2010 health care debate, and also has emerged as a Democratic political strategist.

Schwartz’s mother fled Vienna as a teenager in 1938, after the Germans annexed Austria, and traveled alone to the United States, where she was taken in by a Jewish foster home in Philadelphia. Her father was a dentist in Flushing, Queens, where she grew up. A graduate of Simmons College with a master’s degree in social work from Bryn Mawr College, Schwartz started a women’s health center in 1975 and worked on health care issues as first deputy commissioner for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services. Her husband is a cardiologist. In 1990, Schwartz was elected to the state Senate. In 2000, she ran for the U. S. Senate and finished second in the Democratic primary, with 27% of the vote, behind U.S. Rep. Ron Klink, who had 41%.

The 13th District seat opened when Democratic Rep. Joe Hoeffel ran, unsuccessfully, against then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter in 2004. Schwartz faced two rounds of serious competition. In the primary, her opponent was Joe Torsella, an aide to then-Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell. She was backed by EMILY's List, which spent $170,000 on her behalf and conducted voter outreach. Torsella did well in the city portion of the district, but Schwartz carried Montgomery County with 62%, for an overall win of 52%-48%.

In the general election, her opponent was Republican Melissa Brown, an ophthalmologist who supported abortion rights. Schwartz called herself a “new Democrat,” not a liberal, but Brown labeled her a radical. Schwartz called Brown “sleazy” because of her links to a bankrupt health maintenance organization and a lawsuit that the state insurance department filed against her. “The two opponents proved that women can sling mud as capably as any men,” The Philadelphia Inquirer observed. Both candidates emphasized health care. Schwartz emphasized her sponsorship of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provided health insurance for 133,000 children from low-income families. Brown, a physician with an M.B.A., called for changes in tort law, arguing that it would keep doctors’ liability insurance down and lower the cost of health care. Schwartz won 56%-41%, getting 60% of the vote in Northeast Philadelphia and 53% in Montgomery County. Schwartz’s 2010 Republican opponent, Carson Dee Adcock, dubbed her “the Nancy Pelosi of the East.” But Schwartz had voted frequently with moderate Democrats, and was a vice-chairman of the moderate New Democrat Coalition.

As a member of the Ways and Means Committee in 2009, Schwartz proposed the creation of “Health Care Innovation Zones” to better coordinate care among physicians, hospitals and other providers. During the subsequent health care overhaul debate, she led the efforts to include a provision barring insurance companies from denying coverage to children and adults with pre-existing conditions, as well as ensuring adult children could remain on their parents’ coverage until age 26 and eliminating copayments for seniors’ preventive care services. She also added an amendment to a House-passed water quality bill in March 2009 calling for a study of how pharmaceuticals can harm the U.S. water supply. In other issues on the committee, Schwartz played a central role in the House’s November 2007 passage of the bilateral trade agreement with Peru. As a condition of her support, she secured assurances of environmental and labor protections in that country. She lost her seat on Ways and Means after the GOP takeover slashed the number of Democratic seats, but she remained on the Budget Committee.

Schwartz has been re-elected easily, and has climbed the ranks at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and was put in charge of candidate recruiting for the 2012 election. Her district stands to gain more Democrats in 2012 as Republicans add voters through redistricting to shore up the political fortunes of the Philadelphia area’s four suburban Republicans.