1. Louis John Barletta was born on January 28,1956 and is an American businessman and politician who served as the US representative for from 2011 to 2019.
54 Facts About Lou Barletta
1. 2.
In 2018, Barletta was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for the US Senate, losing to Democratic incumbent Bob Casey Jr.
3.
Lou Barletta ran unsuccessfully in the 2022 Republican primary for governor of Pennsylvania, losing to Doug Mastriano.
4.
Lou Barletta was born on January 28,1956, in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, the son of Angeline and Rocco Lou Barletta, who married on September 6,1943, and were both of Italian ancestry.
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Rocco Lou Barletta helped manage several of the family's businesses, including Angela Park, which operated in nearby Drums until it closed in 1988, and served on the executive committee of the Democratic Party of Hazleton.
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At 18-months-old, Lou Barletta was involved in a car crash, suffering a minor bruise to his left ear and to the right side of his head.
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Lou Barletta graduated with a major in elementary education and made an unsuccessful tryout for the Cincinnati Reds baseball team, having been cut after failing to hit a curveball.
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Lou Barletta then went to work for his family's construction and heating oil business.
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In 1984, Lou Barletta founded a pavement marking company, Interstate Road Marking Corporation, which he sold in 2000.
10.
Republican Lou Barletta was defeated for a seat on the Hazleton City Council in 1995, but won two years later.
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Lou Barletta was reelected in 2003, defeating Democrat Jack Craig and Socialist Tim Mailhot, who campaigned on opposition to the Iraq War.
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In 2007, Lou Barletta received 1,007 votes as a write-in candidate in the Democratic mayoral primary, enough to defeat former Mayor Marsicano, and be listed under both the Republican and Democratic parties in the general election.
13.
In 2004, Barletta was appointed to the United Nations Advisory Committee of Local Authorities by President George W Bush.
14.
That year, Lou Barletta made headlines for his efforts opposing illegal immigration in Hazleton, vowing to make the city "one of the toughest places in the United States" for illegal immigrants.
15.
Lou Barletta introduced and the city council approved the Illegal Immigration Relief Act.
16.
In 2014, four years after Lou Barletta had left office, the town of Hazleton received a court order to reimburse the ACLU $1.4 million in legal fees, and the town, which was already $6 million in debt due to tax anticipation notes it had secured in 2010 and 2011, had to take additional loans to pay the fees.
17.
In 2002, Lou Barletta ran as the Republican candidate in the 11th congressional district against nine-term Democratic incumbent Paul Kanjorski.
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Lou Barletta lost, taking 42 percent of the vote, losing the district's share of Lackawanna County, home to Scranton, by 32 points.
19.
Lou Barletta denounced the endorsement of David Duke in this race.
20.
Lou Barletta won the territory that had been in the district prior to the 2000s round of redistricting by almost 4,000 votes.
21.
Lou Barletta announced on December 9,2009, that he would challenge Kanjorski in 2010.
22.
Lou Barletta won his party's nomination on May 18,2010.
23.
Lou Barletta was easily reelected, winning with 66 percent of the vote.
24.
Lou Barletta proposed five bills that later became law during his time in the House.
25.
Lou Barletta proposed the Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Act of 2011 that would have denied federal funding to cities or municipalities that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, it was referred to some committees and subcommittees but was never voted on.
26.
Lou Barletta introduced the 1986 Amnesty Transparency Act and the Visa Overstay Enforcement Act of 2013, which sought to reexamine the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and prevent visa fraud by increasing prison terms and fines, respectively.
27.
In 2014, Lou Barletta introduced a bill to repeal a provision in the Affordable Care Act which required that volunteer emergency responders be offered healthcare by the organization they volunteer with.
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Lou Barletta argued that the bill was necessary because it would be prohibitively expensive for some of organizations to provide insurance.
29.
In 2016, Lou Barletta joined 18 Republicans in co-sponsoring legislation that would block Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients from enlisting in the military.
30.
Lou Barletta proposed the Disaster Recovery Reform Act in 2017, intended to amend the 1988 Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to use federal disaster assistance to directly administer both permanent and temporary housing for disaster victims, increase assistance to victims with disabilities and provide incentives for preventive preparedness of future natural disasters.
31.
On July 31,2017, the Associated Press reported that Lou Barletta was preparing to run for the US Senate, seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic incumbent Bob Casey Jr.
32.
Lou Barletta later secured the Republican nomination, but ultimately lost to Casey in the general election on November 6,2018.
33.
Lou Barletta's campaign had been consistently outraised throughout the election, which he attributed to his loss, alongside Casey's recognizable name advantage.
34.
Lou Barletta declined to return to Congress following his US Senate bid, instead focusing on his newly formed consulting firm, Pioneer Strategies.
35.
Lou Barletta joined the board of directors of World for Brexit, an organization seeking to see Brexit passed in the United Kingdom,.
36.
Lou Barletta was named chairman of the Pennsylvania delegation to the 2020 Republican National Convention.
37.
On May 17,2021, Lou Barletta officially announced his candidacy for governor.
38.
Lou Barletta cited Wolf's lockdowns enacted in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and concern over expanded mail-in ballots as his reasons for running.
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Lou Barletta made special mention of how he had run and won races in primarily Democratic areas.
40.
Lou Barletta said he would support Mastriano in the general election against Democrat Josh Shapiro.
41.
Lou Barletta credited there being too many candidates in the primary election, lack of support for him in central and western Pennsylvania, and advertisements from Shapiro's campaign labeling Mastriano as the candidate of former president Donald Trump for his defeat.
42.
The last reason for Lou Barletta's self-described loss is disputed, as Mastriano was already leading in the primary when the ads were published.
43.
Lou Barletta has said he believes that life begins at conception.
44.
Lou Barletta has characterized a balanced budget amendment as a gimmick and said he will not vote to raise the debt ceiling.
45.
In 2017, Lou Barletta voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Republican Party's tax reform legislation.
46.
Lou Barletta opposed the Affordable Care Act and voted to repeal it.
47.
Lou Barletta had threatened not to support its attempted repeal because he wanted the repeal legislation to prohibit undocumented immigrants from applying for health insurance tax credits.
48.
In 2018, Lou Barletta said that the repeal of Obamacare would not have weakened protections for individuals with preexisting conditions; experts said that the repeal would have given states the option to seek waivers whereby insurers would be allowed to raise prices for individuals with preexisting conditions who did not have continuous coverage.
49.
In January 2018, CNN reported that Lou Barletta had frequently given interviews with a number of fringe anti-immigration groups and organizations.
50.
Lou Barletta is married to Mary Grace Malloy Barletta and together they have four daughters.
51.
Lou Barletta enjoys baseball, having wanted to become a major league ballplayer during his youth, and would often participate in the annual Congressional Baseball Game during his time as a US Representative.
52.
Lou Barletta descends from Italian immigrants, and after his term in Congress, he helmed the American Italian Food Coalition and sought to protect Italian-produced food products from US tariffs.
53.
Lou Barletta has a cousin, Allison Lou Barletta, who serves on the Hazleton City Council as a Republican.
54.
Lou Barletta primaried incumbent Hazleton Mayor Jeff Cusat in May 2019, but was unsuccessful.