News & Politics

Mudslinging taints Allegheny County Council race

Bethany Hallam and Joanna Doven have been trading barbs on social media.

Bethany Hallam and Joanna Doven

Bethany Hallam and Joanna Doven Caiolinn Ertel; Joanna Doven

Allegheny County Council Member Bethany Hallam and Democratic challenger Joanna Doven are already embroiled in a bitter feud for Hallam’s at-large county council seat – with Twitter becoming a major political battleground for the two to square off in the public light. 

Attacks in the primary race have already gotten personal, and both candidates are promising to bring progress to the greater Pittsburgh region – albeit in different ways. 

Doven, who served as press secretary under then-Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl from 2006 to 2013, has said she wants to return to local government – this time as an elected official – to address the ills that are plaguing the county. 

Doven listed gun violence, homelessness, public safety and economic development as part of an interconnected web of priorities that county officials need to address. 

“Our city right now is experiencing record gun violence. Record homelessness. The corporate community doesn’t really want to stay there. The small businesses are dying because customers are afraid to go downtown,” Doven said in an interview. 

“The ‘gotcha’ politics that are really popular today don’t work to actually progress things forward. What works is collaboration. What works is finding solutions,” she added. For her part, Hallam is hoping that her record as one of Allegheny County Council’s most progressive members will carry her to another term. Since taking office in January 2020, Hallam has advocated for better conditions at the Allegheny County Jail, voted for paid sick leave for county residents and pushed for investments in air and water quality. 

Hallam said some of her top priorities for a second term include setting a $20 hourly minimum wage for county employees, establishing pay rates for incarcerated workers at the county jail and getting the Allegheny County Public Defender’s office the same amount of funding that the District Attorney’s office receives. 

But while she has begun prioritizing her agenda if elected to a second term, Hallam said the residents of Allegheny County will ultimately determine her platform.“At the end of the day, it’s gonna come down to when I’m out in the community: What do people need? What is the need that folks are seeing?” she said. “If we, as elected officials, remembered more often that we are public servants and not just politicians, we would have a much more equitable – not just county – but state and nation.”

Shortly after Doven entered the race, screenshots of some of her past tweets emerged that showed her expressing support for Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and comparing transgender people to Rachel Dolezal, a former NAACP chapter president who received national media attention in 2015 for pretending to be Black. Things only intensified from there, with Doven calling the screenshots a “coordinated Twitter attack” and proceeding to point out Hallam’s past struggles with opioid use

Doven has also criticized Hallam over her vote not to certify the county’s 2022 election results. “She sided with the Republican Sam DeMarco and she sided with the insurrectionists,” Doven told City & State.  

You will never hear anything negative about my opponent coming from my mouth because I do not think mudslinging helps anyone.
– Bethany Hallam

Hallam has publicly responded to many of Doven’s criticisms, telling City & State that “shaming folks for their lived experiences is not how we move the county forward.” “I am going to be focusing on this campaign. I’m going to keep focusing on the work that we’ve done, on the work that we still have to do,” Hallam said. “You will never hear anything negative about my opponent coming from my mouth because I do not think mudslinging helps anyone.”

Hallam has been open about her battle with opioid use disorder. In an interview with Bustle in 2019, during her first run for Allegheny County Council, Hallam said she got a wakeup call when she went into withdrawal in the Allegheny County Jail while serving time on drug-related charges, explaining how she focused on politics after getting out of jail. “I just took all that energy that I was using to support my addiction for all those years and gave it 110%,” she recalled. 

There is no shortage of ammunition for the candidates to use on each other. Already this year, Hallam has become the subject of an effort to censure her over an insult she hurled at Common Pleas Judge Elliot Howsie, who chairs the county’s Jail Oversight Board. 

Doven’s old tweets also attracted criticism from Pittsburgh progressives and Hallam allies. QBurgh, an LGBTQ news and community resource organization based in Pittsburgh, ripped Doven for the tweets, saying her social media accounts have been “filled with anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ and racist sentiments.”

In her initial 24-tweet thread responding to criticisms made against her, Doven apologized for her comments about Dolezal, saying they were “insensitive” and “outright wrong.” 

Perhaps we have all just gotten so used to the mud that we don’t know how to conduct a clean fight anymore.
– Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial board

But she also downplayed the focus on the old tweets, saying there are much more pressing issues to address in the county.“Residents are checking their locks at night because they feel unsafe. People are afraid to go to the mall because there might be a shooting. People have to think about where to park and what route to walk to downtown to avoid aggressive panhandling. We need more police and we need to provide them with our support,” Doven said. 

The early infighting has already captivated Pittsburgh politicos and prompted others to call for the rhetoric in the race to be toned down. A Jan. 19 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial denounced the divisive discourse. 

“The primary isn’t until May. There are still four months to get through between now and then. It’s too soon to start punching each other in the mouth,” the Tribune-Review’s editorial board wrote. “This is a job interview, and no one in the real world is ever hired after handing in an application and immediately sucker-punching an employee. Why is it ever OK when the job is elected?”

But with less than four months to go until Allegheny County voters choose their next at-large representative on May 16, the editorial board didn’t express total confidence that candidates will heed their call before then.“Perhaps we have all just gotten so used to the mud that we don’t know how to conduct a clean fight anymore,” the board wrote. “Well, let’s figure it out, because continuing this downward slide into the muck can’t be allowed to continue.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.