- New Lawsuit Claims Rep. Summer Lee Should Have Had Another Primary Challenger
A signature gathering company is accused of preventing moderate Democrats from gaining enough support to compete against progressives.
Specifically, the firm whose CEO Zee Cohen-Sanchez worked on the campaigns of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders is accused of blocking a Democrat from running for Rep. Summer Lee, a member of the ousted team, it can reveal in exclusive DailyMail.com.
A lawsuit filed Monday alleges that Sole Strategies took on Democrat Laurie MacDonald as a client in an effort to thwart her bid to unseat Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District.
MacDonald, executive director and president of the Victims Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, says she believes the effort is a form of “election interference.”
She hired Sole Strategies to help her collect the necessary signatures in her community to qualify for the 2024 Democratic primary.
Former Pennsylvania House candidate Laurie MacDonald failed to appear on the primary ballot and is now suing a progressive signature-gathering company for intentionally blocking her ability to take on a team member.
MacDonald paid for 3,000 petitions, but claims they only received 775 valid signatures. To be eligible to appear on the primary ballot against Lee, he would have needed 1,000 signed petitions.
But now, MacDonald claims the political strategy firm tanked his campaign by intentionally not getting enough support to get to the polls, and even by submitting a large number of invalid signatures.
“She intentionally withholds signatures until the last minute,” MacDonald said in a statement to DailyMail.com. “She won’t let you check them.”
“You just have to wait until just before the election to see what they have gathered, mostly fake signatures, and then it will be too late,” he added. “Sole Strategies is taking money from anti-establishment candidates to intentionally ruin their campaigns.”
Rep. Lee won 60.4 percent in her April primary against lone Democratic challenger Bhavini Patel. She won the general election on Tuesday with 56.2 percent to her Republican rival James Hayes’ 43.8 percent.
Representative Summer Lee is part of the progressive team in Congress. He easily won his primary with little competition and won re-election on Tuesday.
Cohen-Sanchez worked on Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. “It should have been Bernie,” his Twitter bio says.
She also worked to elect Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who began serving her first term after the 2018 midterm elections. AOC is part of the so-called progressive “squad” of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives, which also includes Rep. Lee.
The ‘lifelong activist’ founded Sole Strategies in 2020 and serves as its CEO.
MacDonald’s lawsuit against Sole Strategies is similar to one filed in 2022 by former New York State Senate candidate John O’Hara after he paid the company $20,000.
Sole Strategies CEO Zee Cohen-Sanchez worked for the campaigns of Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
MacDonald Lawyer Demands Sole Strategies Return Funds Contributed to 3,000 Petitions After Firm Returned Only 775 Valid Signatures
O’Hara received signatures from the company that came from outside his district where he intended to run, which therefore could not be counted toward his inclusion on the ballot.
“Some of these firms came from miles away in the borough,” he told the New York Post in an interview in 2022. “A couple were from the Bronx, so these are just people (Sole Strategies) found on the street.” .
O’Hara expressed support for MacDonald’s lawsuit and suggested it become a class-action lawsuit because of the widespread effects the signature-gathering scam has caused.
“Sole Strategies has become the face of election interference,” he said in a statement shared with DailyMail.com. “They have election lawyers to fight each individual lawsuit and the misconduct is too widespread.”
“I would urge Ms. MacDonald to lead a class action lawsuit,” he suggested.
The seat O’Hara intended to run for in New York State Senate District 17 in 2022 is now held by progressive Iwen Chu of the Working Families Party of New York.
In the general election he defeated conservative Vito LaBella by just 1.5 percent.