County
Luzerne
Occupation
Community Advocate
Education
Fern Leard’s education is rooted in real-world experience, including years of healthcare advocacy, policy engagement, and grassroots organizing. She has worked directly with members of Congress, local officials, and community leaders to advance legislation and develop practical policy solutions.
Qualifications
Fern Leard is a healthcare advocate and community organizer and a full time caregiver to her special needs twins. She collaborates with policymakers, organizes residents, expands healthcare access, and develops solutions to affordability and infrastructure challenges.
The most pressing issues facing residents of our district are rising utility costs tied to massive data center development, an affordability crisis where hard work is not keeping up with costs, property taxes that are pushing people out of their homes, and a political system dominated by big money.
I will fight to stop ratepayers from footing the bill for corporate data centers, strengthen consumer protections and price gouging laws, and lower everyday costs for working families. I will push for real property tax relief by increasing state investment in education and protecting seniors and homeowners. I will also refuse corporate PAC money and advance transparency and ethics reforms so government works for people, not powerful interests.
I support improving access to voting while maintaining strong election security and public confidence. I support expanded early voting, secure mail in voting with clear tracking, and adequate funding for counties to administer elections efficiently. I believe poll workers should be properly trained and supported, and that voting locations should be accessible and fairly distributed. I also support modernizing election infrastructure, including updated equipment and cybersecurity protections. At the same time, I oppose unnecessary barriers that make it harder for eligible voters to participate. Elections should be secure, transparent, and accessible so every eligible voter can cast a ballot and trust the results.
The state budget process is too often delayed, creating uncertainty for schools, municipalities, and service providers that rely on predictable funding. When budgets are late, communities are forced to make decisions without knowing what resources they will receive. I support stronger transparency requirements, earlier public negotiations, and firm deadlines that encourage on time passage. Lawmakers should be required to publicly post proposals and hold open discussions so residents understand what is being negotiated. I also support limiting last minute omnibus deals that reduce accountability. A timely, transparent budget process helps communities plan and ensures funding reaches people when they need it.
Yes. The state legislature should establish baseline protections for water use, energy demand, and land impacts from data centers, especially given their regional strain on infrastructure and natural resources. State standards can ensure transparency, environmental safeguards, and fair cost allocation so residents are not subsidizing private developments. These laws should be written to complement, not override, municipal authority under the MPC. Local governments must retain the ability to adopt stronger zoning, setbacks, and operational requirements based on community needs. A floor, not a ceiling, protects both statewide interests and local control.
County
Luzerne
Occupation
Public Interest Attorney
Education
Bishop O'Reilly High School, 2005, H.S.D.; St. Joseph's University, 2009, B.A Philosophy and Fine and Performing Arts (Magna Cum Laude); City University of New York School of Law, 2013, J.D. (Magna Cum Laude)
Qualifications
Served as a Luzerne County Councilperson 2024-current; authored Election Worker Protection Ordinance, lobbied for Responsible Contractor Ordinance, authored Anti-Discrimination Ordinance, authored Protect Our Neighbors Act: To Ensure County Resources are not utilized for ICE and only for the County
The two biggest issues facing my district are affordability and education. I believe every Pennsylvanian should be able to earn a good education and a living wage. As we see more inflation and shrinkflation, it’s more important than ever to ensure Pennsylvania workers are able to earn a living wage. Companies must be held accountable to the communities they employ and also pay their fair share in taxes.
The first step towards a better education for our children is fully funding education at the state level. Fully funding education eases the tax burden on local homeowners while providing better facilities and more teachers for our children. I support fully funding education to keep costs more affordable and to support future generations.
We must make our elections more accessible for everyone, making election day a holiday so that everyone may vote. Professionally, I work with some of our most vulnerable, who often have trouble making it to the polls or participating in mail-in balloting. To make elections more accessible, I believe we must make election day a holiday, offer ballot drop box locations for everyone and even placing additional drop boxes.
I also support setting clear expectations at the state level for localities to ensure that proofread ballots are sent out, collected, and counted in a timely manner. While I believe localities should administer their own elections, it is appropriate for the state to set clear standards and expectations for them.
The Senate and the House have four months to negotiate, change, collaborate and pass the Governor’s budget. The budget process should be completed by June 30. If it is not, no Senator and no Representative should be able to go home or be paid until the budget is passed. Every school district, municipality, and Pennsylvanian who depends on state funding is put in harm’s way when the legislature fails to pass a budget on time. Our budget is more than just numbers on a sheet; it is a family’s ability to pay their mortgage, it is an employee’s ability to purchase groceries. These numbers affect real people with real consequences. As your Representative, I would take this responsibility seriously and prioritize the budget over politics.
The State must enact laws to ensure that Data Centers do not negatively impact or exploit the localities hosting them. Data centers will impact our natural resources and the demands on our local power grids, but there is still so much we don’t know. We need laws that restrict and mitigate these impacts to keep communities safe.
While I am not opposed to building data centers, we have to get it right. Legislation could guarantee Data Center projects receive the much-needed carefulness, planning, and oversight they require. State leaders must treat municipalities as allies in this growth, but we all share a responsibility to our neighbors to ensure new industries, including Data Centers, will not cause harm to our local neighborhoods.
County
Luzerne
Occupation
State Representative
The biggest issues I hear about are cost of living, energy prices, taxes, public safety, and protecting local jobs. I’ve focused on common sense ways to make life more affordable, including legislation that I Introduced to remove the burden from residents and businesses on the unfair and unfunded rain tax mandate, working to lower energy costs, supporting job creators and our workers, and backing first responders. I will keep fighting for practical solutions that help families, seniors, and workers here at home and across the Commonwealth.
Pennsylvanians deserve and should expect their elections to be secure, transparent, and easily accessible for all eligible voters to participate in. I support clear rules, accurate voter rolls, timely ballot processing, and consistent standards across all 67 counties. We should protect access for lawful voters while making sure election laws are followed fairly and uniformly. I support common sense legislation that would require all voters to show ID when voting. Requiring ID at the polls prevents fraud and will begin to rebuild confidence in our electoral system. I also introduced legislation moving the date for the mail ballots out to a reasonable time frame to ensure there is enough time for every vote to count.
Pennsylvania’s budget process needs more accountability, transparency and urgency. I introduced bipartisan legislation to require lawmakers to remain in session if a state budget is not enacted by July 31 - providing an additional month for the budget to be worked out. Families, schools, counties, and nonprofits should not be left waiting because Harrisburg cannot do its job on time. We need a budget process that is timely, disciplined, and responsible and the general public deserves to be upset with their elected officials when this does not happen.
As a wife & mother, I understand the importance of growth and investment for our region, and I also know we have a responsibility to protect residents and our natural resources. That’s
why as State Representative, I supported legislation mandating large data center projects to submit advanced reporting prior to construction. Large facilities use significant amounts of water, and local communities should have access to planning, transparency, and protections to ensure that development doesn't negatively impact them. As a crucial component of this process, I also believe local governments must continue to have a strong voice in these decisions as outlined in the current code.
