Representative Kathleen A. Dahlkemper

Kathleen Ann Dahlkemper (née Steenberge; born December 10, 1957) is an American politician and public servant who has held office at both the federal and county levels in Pennsylvania. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as the U.S. representative for Pennsylvania’s 3rd congressional district from January 3, 2009, to January 3, 2011, and was elected county executive of Erie County, Pennsylvania, in 2013. During her one term in Congress, she participated in the legislative process at a significant moment in American political history, representing the interests of her northwestern Pennsylvania constituents in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Dahlkemper was born Kathleen Ann Steenberge in Erie, Pennsylvania, one of seven children of Carl W. and M. Janet Clarke Steenberge. Raised in a large family in Erie, she remained closely tied to the region that she would later represent in Congress and lead at the county level. She attended Edinboro State College (now PennWest Edinboro), graduating in 1982 with a degree in dietetics. Her early adult life included a first marriage while in college; after that marriage became abusive, she divorced and raised her son as a single mother, at times relying on food stamp assistance. These experiences informed her later public positions on family, economic, and social welfare issues.

Following her graduation, Dahlkemper worked for more than two decades as a clinical dietitian. She initially practiced in Houston, Texas, before returning to the Erie area, where she continued her work in clinical nutrition. In 1997, she became part-owner, human resources manager, and special projects director of Dahlkemper Landscape Architects and Contractors, a major landscaping firm in the Erie region. In addition to her business responsibilities, she co-founded and served as director of the Lake Erie Arboretum at Frontier Park, a community-based environmental and educational initiative in Erie. Her combined experience in health care, small business management, and nonprofit leadership provided a practical foundation for her later legislative and executive work.

Dahlkemper entered electoral politics in October 2007, when she announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania’s 3rd congressional district. A first-time candidate for public office, she won the Democratic primary by an unexpectedly wide 19-point margin. In the November 2008 general election, she faced seven-term Republican incumbent Phil English. During the campaign, she criticized English for breaking his original pledge to serve only six terms and sought to link him to the policies of the George W. Bush administration. Despite being significantly outspent—raising approximately $872,000 to English’s $2.2 million—she benefited from substantial support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In an upset victory, she won the election with 51.2 percent of the vote to English’s 48.8 percent. Although she carried only two of the district’s seven counties, Erie and Mercer, she secured a decisive margin in Erie County, winning it by nearly 16,000 votes.

When she took office on January 3, 2009, Dahlkemper became the first Democrat to represent Pennsylvania’s 3rd congressional district, or its predecessors, since Joseph Vigorito was defeated by Marc L. Marks in 1976, and only the third Democrat to hold the seat since 1893. She was also the first woman to represent northwest Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives and one of only two women in Pennsylvania’s 19-member House delegation at the time, alongside Allyson Schwartz of the Philadelphia area. During her term in the 111th Congress, she served on the Committee on Agriculture, where she sat on the Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research and the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry. She also served on the Committee on Science and Technology, including its Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, and on the Committee on Small Business, where she chaired the Subcommittee on Regulations, Healthcare and Trade and served on the Subcommittee on Rural and Urban Entrepreneurship.

Ideologically, Dahlkemper was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, reflecting a more fiscally moderate and sometimes socially conservative stance within the Democratic Party. She supported the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy governing service by gay and lesbian members of the armed forces and co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as “card check,” which aimed to facilitate union organizing. She identified as “pro-life” and in 2009 received the “Hall of Fame” Award from Democrats for Life of America, an anti-abortion advocacy group. In the health care reform debates of 2009–2010, she supported the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, an anti-abortion amendment to the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962), seeking to restrict the use of federal funds for abortion. She later voted in favor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act after President Barack Obama issued an executive order reaffirming that federal funds could not be used for abortions, a step she cited as addressing her concerns. Throughout her term, she contributed to the legislative process during a period marked by economic crisis and major federal policy initiatives.

In the 2010 midterm elections, Dahlkemper sought a second term but was defeated by Republican Mike Kelly, a car dealer from the southern portion of the district. Kelly won by 11.4 percentage points, the largest margin of defeat for any incumbent member of Congress from Pennsylvania in that election cycle. While Dahlkemper again carried Erie County, she lost heavily in the district’s more rural and conservative areas, and since her departure from office, a Democrat has come within single digits in the district—renumbered as the 16th District—only once. Her husband, Dan Dahlkemper, was elected the first male president of the Congressional Spouses’ freshman class in 2009, underscoring the family’s visible role in congressional life during her tenure.

After leaving Congress in January 2011, Dahlkemper remained active in public affairs and returned to local politics. In March 2013, she announced her candidacy for Erie County executive, challenging incumbent Democrat Barry Grossman. She defeated Grossman in the Democratic primary on May 21, 2013, with 52 percent of the vote. In the November 2013 general election, she prevailed over Republican nominee Don Tucci, winning 57 percent of the vote. Dahlkemper took office as Erie County executive on January 6, 2014, assuming responsibility for the administration of county government and regional policy. She ran for reelection in 2017 and narrowly won a second term, receiving 50.15 percent of the vote to Republican Art Oligeri’s 49.64 percent, a margin of 307 votes, after overcoming strong opposition in the county’s more conservative eastern areas.

In her personal life, Dahlkemper later married Dan Dahlkemper, who adopted her son from her first marriage; together they had four additional children. Her trajectory from clinical dietitian and small business executive to member of Congress and county executive reflects a career rooted in Erie and in the broader economic and social concerns of northwestern Pennsylvania, combining professional experience in health care and business with a record of public service at multiple levels of government.