Patrick Meehan

Republican Congressional candidate Patrick Meehan enters the final weeks of his campaign with more than $1.5 million cash on hand, his campaign announced Monday. Meehan, who faces Democrat Bryan Lentz in Pennsylvania's Seventh House Congressional District, raised more than $725,000 in the third quarter, which closed Sept. 30, his campaign said. At the last filing deadline, Meehan outpaced Lentz in cash on hand by about $337,000, according to federal campaign finance reports.

Zane David Memeger was sworn in Monday morning to become the 58th United States attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Memeger, nominated by President Obama last month, was confirmed May 5 by the U.S. Senate in a unanimous vote. As the region's top federal prosecutor, Memeger will decide which prosecutions go forward and determine which attorneys are assigned to specific cases. He will run an office of 130 lawyers and almost as many staff members. Along with Philadelphia, the district covers Delaware, Montgomery, Chester, Bucks, Lancaster, Berks, Lehigh and Northampton Counties.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are slated to be in Philadelphia today to campaign for Democratic congressional candidate Bryan Lentz. Biden and Pelosi will headline a luncheon fundraiser at the Sheraton Hotel at 17th and Race Streets in Philadelphia at noon. It's $1,000 to get in the door, and at least $5,000 for the V.I.P. reception. As many as 200 people are expected to attend, said Lentz campaign spokesman Vincent Rongione. The money raised will go to the Lentz campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Democrat Bryan Lentz, who is running to replace Joe Sestak in the Seventh Congressional District in suburban Philadelphia, started running television ads Tuesday. The ad buy comes after a conservative group launched ads last week to attack Lentz and other Democrats on government spending. Lentz, a two-term state representative and Iraq war veteran, is running two ads. One introduces him to voters: http://www.philly.com/philly/video/102913784.html The second goes after Lentz's Republican opponent, Patrick Meehan, for Meehan's support of the Bush tax cuts.

Laurie Magid knows that she will be an "acting" U.S. attorney only until a permanent one is nominated by the next president. But that doesn't mean that Magid, who will be the first woman U.S. attorney here when she takes over next week from Patrick Meehan, intends just to keep the seat warm for a successor. Magid said yesterday that while the U.S. Attorney's Office is "in a period of transition," her goal is to "build on the legacy" that Meehan created in the areas of gun violence, health-care fraud and public corruption.

Delaware County District Attorney Patricia N. Holsten, who replaced Patrick Meehan when he was named U.S. attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania in September, died Friday of cancer. She was 56 and lived in Newtown Square. Holsten was the first woman DA in Delaware County. Deputy District Attorney Jack Stewart will replace her until a panel of judges appoints a successor. Holsten, who grew up in Upper Darby, began her courtroom career after teaching history. She received a law degree from Widener University in 1987.

Delaware County Democrats want federal authorities to look into what they contend is a pattern of forgeries on nominating petitions for Republican congressional candidate Patrick Meehan. State Rep. Bryan Lentz, who is seeking the Democratic nomination in the Seventh Congressional District, said he would ask the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate all 3,623 signatures submitted by Meehan. Lentz plans to announce the request at a news conference Thursday morning outside the federal courthouse in Philadelphia.

A Delaware County unit investigating Internet crimes against children screened 600 tips last year and participated in the arrests of 85 people across the state, District Attorney Michael Green said yesterday. Green provided the data at a news conference to mark $650,000 in new federal funding for the program, the latest in a series of grants dating to 1999. With millions of teens online daily, one in 33 reported being "aggressively solicited" to meet in person or by telephone, according to a study by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Republican congressional candidate Patrick Meehan defeated his Democratic challenger, State Rep. Bryan Lentz, by a 10 point margin Tuesday night. Meehan won 55 percent of the vote to Lentz's 44 percent with more than 96 percent of the voting counted. At a victory celebration held at the Springfield Country Club in Delaware County, Meehan, told a crowd of more than 500 screaming supporters to celebrate tonight, because the hard work lies ahead. "This is a great victory for us," he said.

DURING HIS YEARS as U.S. attorney, we admired Patrick Meehan, who spearheaded many anti-corruption cases, including a successful case against Vincent Fumo. But our head has been turned by challenger Bryan Lentz, whom we endorse for the Delaware County 7th Congressional District. Lentz is a state representative who most recently sponsored a bill in Harrisburg to close the so-called "Florida loophole"; the bill failed. His record shows him to be unafraid to stand up against the status quo: He voted against the state gaming bill, and the Teamsters recently withdrew their endorsement of his candidacy for his bill that would fine construction firms for misclassifying workers to avoid taxes.

Republican congressional candidate Patrick Meehan defeated his Democratic challenger, State Rep. Bryan Lentz, by a 10 point margin Tuesday night. Meehan won 55 percent of the vote to Lentz's 44 percent with more than 96 percent of the voting counted. At a victory celebration held at the Springfield Country Club in Delaware County, Meehan, told a crowd of more than 500 screaming supporters to celebrate tonight, because the hard work lies ahead. "This is a great victory for us," he said.

Republican Patrick Meehan convincingly defeated Democratic rival State Rep. Bryan Lentz on Tuesday, claiming the bitterly contested House seat vacated by Joe Sestak when he decided to run for the U.S. Senate. With the victory by Meehan, 55, a former U.S. attorney from Drexel Hill, the GOP reclaimed the Seventh Congressional District seat hard-won in 2006 by Sestak, only the second Democrat since the Civil War to represent the district, which includes most of Delaware County and parts of Montgomery and Chester Counties.

What sorts of attacks fly in the closing days of a congressional race that has had the candidates at each other's throats for the better part of a year? In the Seventh Congressional District, the answer has been expense reports, per diems, and mileage reimbursements. The latest lob comes from the Democrats, who on Thursday asked federal authorities to review expenses submitted by Republican candidate Patrick Meehan while he was U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania.

DURING HIS YEARS as U.S. attorney, we admired Patrick Meehan, who spearheaded many anti-corruption cases, including a successful case against Vincent Fumo. But our head has been turned by challenger Bryan Lentz, whom we endorse for the Delaware County 7th Congressional District. Lentz is a state representative who most recently sponsored a bill in Harrisburg to close the so-called "Florida loophole"; the bill failed. His record shows him to be unafraid to stand up against the status quo: He voted against the state gaming bill, and the Teamsters recently withdrew their endorsement of his candidacy for his bill that would fine construction firms for misclassifying workers to avoid taxes.

The heated contest for an open congressional seat in Delaware County could turn on an ethical controversy involving the Democratic nominee, who condoned helping a third-party candidate regarded as a spoiler. Two-term Democratic state Rep. Bryan Lentz says he sees no harm in his volunteers' gathering thousands of petition signatures for a third-party challenger, Jim Schneller, who is far from being congressional material. Lentz's dismissive explanation - "politics is politics" - for helping to get Schneller on the ballot is a jarring admission and character flaw for a former Philadelphia prosecutor.

Patrick Meehan had been Delaware County district attorney less than a month when a multimillionaire sports patron shot and killed an Olympic wrestler in Newtown Square. A few months later, a college student was abducted along the Blue Route, then killed and dumped in a lot in North Philadelphia. The high-profile cases in 1996 drew national media attention to Meehan, a former hockey referee and civil litigator who had no previous criminal-law experience. Winning convictions in those two cases bolstered Meehan's reputation as a law-and-order Republican, and led to his appointment as U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania in 2001.

The polls show the lead contenders neck and neck, and the national parties expect to spend richly on the race. But in the fifth and final debate scheduled in Pennsylvania's Seventh Congressional District, the Republican candidate, Patrick Meehan, didn't show. That meant that Democratic candidate Bryan Lentz aimed his sharpest attacks at a phantom. And it left Lentz alone onstage with the third-party candidate his campaign helped prop up. Democrats and Lentz volunteers gathered thousands of signatures for Jim Schneller, an independent conservative Democrats hope will snag votes from Meehan on Nov. 2. Meehan pulled out of the debate last week after the host of the debate, the League of Women Voters, refused to rescind its invitation to Schneller.

Republican congressional candidate Patrick Meehan on Monday night pulled out of the final scheduled debate of the campaign, citing the presence of a third-party candidate who was invited to participate. Meehan faces Democrat Bryan Lentz and third-party candidate Jim Schneller in the race to replace U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania's Seventh District. Meehan and Lentz have met in four debates since August. Schneller, who is running as the American Congress Party candidate, was not invited to the previous debates.

Republican Congressional candidate Patrick Meehan enters the final weeks of his campaign with more than $1.5 million cash on hand, his campaign announced Monday. Meehan, who faces Democrat Bryan Lentz in Pennsylvania's Seventh House Congressional District, raised more than $725,000 in the third quarter, which closed Sept. 30, his campaign said. At the last filing deadline, Meehan outpaced Lentz in cash on hand by about $337,000, according to federal campaign finance reports.

By the time New Jersey's governor arrived in Delaware County on Monday to help a fellow Republican, the loud slashing sounds from Trenton had already reached the ears of the lunch crowd at the Llanerch Diner. "I'm a Democrat, but Christie looks like a force," said Joe Hussey, a Havertown senior eating at the Upper Darby fixture. Hussey said he is no fan of Gov. Christie's budget cuts and pension-reform plans. "He's doing a lot of things in New Jersey . . . a lot of things that not a lot of people like.