Primary Election to be held, May 18, as Gainey continues to garner support
by Leonard Hammonds II
For New Pittsburgh Courier
It is not uncommon to see State Rep. Ed Gainey’s familiar face in the community throughout various parts of Pittsburgh.
Now, Rep. Gainey seeks to challenge Mayor Bill Peduto to serve as the 61st mayor of Pittsburgh. In an exclusive interview with the New Pittsburgh Courier, Rep. Gainey affirms he will continue working across divisions and creating unity, itching to create a more equitable and livable Pittsburgh for all.
“The reason why I’m running for mayor now is because I believe we have a great chance to turn our disparities into opportunities and actions for all of Pittsburgh,” he said.
In 2013, he first assumed office as State Representative of the 24th House District, when, months prior, he defeated incumbent Joseph Preston Jr. From there, he took off running and engaging the needs of the community. It hasn’t been a surprise that he’s continued to be re-elected—he easily got re-elected in 2014 when he won 85.7 percent of the vote. Two years later, he won nearly 81 percent of the vote. In 2018, he won 81 percent of the vote again. He ran unopposed in the 2020 election. He’s currently in the first of his latest two-year term as a State Representative.
Rep. Gainey, though, said that he’s all in on becoming a mayor—the mayor—of the Steel City, of which he would be the first African American. He looks to garner the support of even more city residents as he lays out some of his priorities: clean and safe streets; affordable housing; partnering with Pittsburgh Public Schools; improving police-community relations; uplifting the morale of city workers and letting them know they’re valued; and having a solutions-based approach to the “Gender Equity Report.”
The conversation around racial disparities in Pittsburgh has become regular conversation, while studies like the 2019 Gender Equity Report prove that leadership in Pittsburgh caters to a certain set of Pittsburghers.
The Gender Equity Report, specifically known as “Pittsburgh’s Inequality Across Gender and Race,” produced by the University of Pittsburgh, found “serious disparities for all women, and especially for Black women and girls.”
Junia Howell, Ph.D., a co-author of the study and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Pitt, summarized the report: “If Black residents got up today and left and moved to the majority of any other city in the U.S., automatically, by just moving, their life expectancy would go up, their income would go up, their educational opportunities for their children would go up as well as their employment.”
STATE REP. ED GAINEY, center, is gaining more and more support as the May 18 Primary Election approaches. (Photos by Courier photographer J.L. Martello)
Rep. Gainey told the Courier he has an agenda of providing solutions regarding the Gender Equity Report. “We should never come out with a report that has no recommendation on how to become better. To make a statement that Black people, Black women in this city live in deplorable conditions and that Pittsburgh is not a place for them, that does not create hope in people,” he told the Courier.
Various scholars identify the correlation between poverty, education and crime. Rep. Gainey, 50, seeks to form an even closer partnership with Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) if he becomes mayor. “Every great city has a great school district, and every great school district has a great city,” he said. “We have to work together with the school district to talk about how we can partner on activities to make that possible.”
Rep. Gainey knows a little something about PPS. He graduated as a Peabody Highlander in 1988. Peabody is now Obama Academy, in East Liberty. East Liberty is within his state House District, along with his neighborhood residence, Lincoln-Lemington. Rep. Gainey is also a 1994 graduate of Morgan State University, an HBCU.
Rep. Gainey, the man with the confident, larger-than-life presence, is racking up the endorsements. This past weekend, he received the endorsement of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee, making Rep. Gainey the first African American to ever get a mayoral endorsement from the committee.
In February, Rep. Gainey received the endorsement of the Service Employees International Union (Healthcare Pa.), a union that consists of nearly 45,000 health care workers and service employees in health facilities. It’s obvious that his longtime advocacy and willingness to boost the morale of city workers and express his gratitude to them over the years didn’t go unnoticed.
“Rep. Gainey has worked every day to make sure that we have what we need to stay safe during COVID. He knows that when you lift up the people who have been excluded and ignored, you lift up everyone,” said Nila Payton, administrative assistant at UPMC Presbyterian, in a Feb. 24 statement from SEIU announcing its endorsement. “I see Rep. Gainey in our communities all the time, hosting back-to-school events with music, food, resources for families and providing our school-aged children with backpacks and school supplies. We can build a city that works for everyone, but it takes someone willing to challenge power and do the work, not just talk the talk. Ed Gainey is that person.”
Rep. Gainey’s first endorsement from a political group, though, was from the regional activist collective One PA. Angel Gober, the organization’s Western Pa. director, called Rep. Gainey “a proven public servant who leads with humility and strength,” in a statement from the group announcing its endorsement.
Rep. Gainey holds valuable relationships with community members and local police officers. Through his objective lens, he told the Courier that “there are, without question, police officers that I would leave my children with and know that they would grow up to be healthy and whole. That’s the other side of the equation. Building a healthy police-community relationship benefits all. I have advocated and fought for that in the (Pa. General Assembly) and in the community.”
As a leader in the community, Rep. Gainey has made it a point to avoid generalizing in a world that makes it tempting to engage in generalizations. He’s spoken on behalf of those who have been maimed and/or injured by the police. He has also awarded the good works of police officers every year at his annual Community Police Service Award ceremony for the community service that many officers perform.
Rep. Gainey has advocated over the years for more affordable housing in Pittsburgh, better police-community relations, and other issues. The outspoken Pa. Representative recently co-sponsored a bill in the state House with Rep. Morgan Cephas, a Black woman representing Philadelphia, concerning those who file false police reports. Many of these false police reports involve a White person leveling unfounded claims on a Black person; such was the case when, last spring, a White woman in New York City called the police on a Black man because he asked her to put her dog on a leash.
He and state Rep. Summer Lee, a Black woman representing the 34th House District (which includes the Mon Valley), also teamed up to sponsor a bill on Police Use of Force, stemming from the tragic death of 17-year-old Antwon Rose II, who was killed by a then-East Pittsburgh Police officer in 2018.
It’s not like Mayor Peduto is going down without a fight, however. The two-time mayor of Pittsburgh said that his record of reforming the city government is strong. And he’s attained his share of endorsements, including the endorsements of Pittsburgh City Council’s two Black members, Rev. Ricky Burgess and R. Daniel Lavelle.
“Mayor Peduto has been extremely supportive of programs that tackle affordability, the wealth gap in Black communities, and inequity,” Councilman Lavelle told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a Feb. 11 article.
The Primary Election will be held, May 18. The winner of the mayoral primary for the Democratic Party undoubtedly will secure the candidate’s position to win the General Election in November.
“We can talk about reform, but what has been done?” Rep. Gainey said, countering Mayor Peduto’s claim of city government reform on his watch. “We still have police-community relations problems, we still have a housing problem, we still have gender equity problems. We have a lot of issues. So I’m not sure where the reform has taken place. Are we talking about departmental reforms? The reform I’m talking about is running Pittsburgh altogether, moving Pittsburgh from a two-tale city to a one-for-all city. From a city that is divided to a city that is united, that’s real reform.”
“We have the historic opportunity to elect a powerful voice for the people and the first Black mayor of the City of Pittsburgh,” said One Pa Board Chair, LaSaine Latimore, in a statement. “Ed has been a true ally and friend to One PA members for years, always showing up for us. We’re going to make sure that we show up for him.”
(Rob Taylor Jr. contributed to this story.)
(Featured photo by J.L. Martello)
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