Ryan Mackenzie touts his conservative record in running in 7th Congressional District
He is among three Republicans seeking a primary win and chance to defeat incumbent Susan Wild in November
Editor’s note: This post on Ryan Mackenzie is the second of three profiles of the candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the 7th Congressional District on April 23. You can read Maria Montero’s profile here. Read Kevin Dellicker’s profile here.
Ryan Mackenzie was 29 when he won a special election in western Lehigh County’s 134th House District. Now, after 12 years in state office, he has set his sights on Congress.
Mackenzie, 41, of Lower Macungie Township, is among three Republicans vying for their party’s nomination in the 7th Congressional District in the April 23 primary.
The seat is held by Democrat Susan Wild of South Whitehall Township, who is seeking her fourth term and is unopposed in the primary.
Challenging Mackenzie are Kevin Dellicker of Heidelberg Township, a business owner and veteran making his second try at winning the nomination, and Maria Montero, a lawyer who lives in Easton.
The 7th Congressional District covers all of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties and a small portion of Monroe County.
U.S. representatives serve for two years and earn $174,000 a year. Only Democrats and Republicans can vote for their respective party candidates in the primary.
Mackenzie, who represents the 187th House District, said the pending birth of his son led him to take action and run for Congress.
“What I’ve seen from the Joe Biden administration in Washington, D.C., is scaring me and we need to get our country back on the right track,” Mackenzie said.
Mackenzie said he is concerned about two issues in particular – immigration and inflation.
“We have a wide open southern border,” he said in a recent interview. “(The) inflation and the economic policies that are coming out of Washington, D.C., have really driven up prices, and it makes it difficult for people to make ends meet.”
Mackenzie said he is the only one of the three Republican candidates who can make a difference in Washington, D.C.
“I have a proven conservative track record in the state House of Representatives that I plan to carry forward and help us solve some of our most pressing issues,” Mackenzie said at a Lehigh Valley Tea Party forum in January.
Mackenzie’s conservative bona fides include his pro-gun and anti-abortion votes as a state lawmaker, his votes against tax hikes, his support for finishing former President Donald Trump’s Mexican border wall and his own proposed state legislation to thwart illegal immigration in Pennsylvania.
He said he opposes giving more financial aid to Ukraine and supports Israel’s right to defend itself against the attack by Hamas that killed 695 civilians in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Mackenzie said the country needs someone like him in Congress, someone who supports Trump.
“We need to have a congressman from this district who has an “America First” policy and “America First” belief system and ultimately we need to get an executive in the White House who's going to do those things and that's why I have also endorsed for president Donald Trump,” he said.
Background
Mackenzie, who was born in Allentown, said he is a ninth generation resident of the Lehigh Valley. His ancestor fought in George Washington’s militia.
His mother Milou Mackenzie, of Lower Saucon Township, is the Republican state representative from the 131st District and is running for a third term. His father Charles Mackenzie is a former president of the Lehigh County Republican Party.
Mackenzie graduated from Parkland High School in 2000 and from New York University in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in finance and international business. He received a master of business administration degree in 2010 from Harvard University, where he said he faced “slings and arrows every single day because I was president of the Republican Club.”
In 2004, he worked on the campaign of now former U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey and was employed by the U.S. Labor Department in 2007. He was director of Pennsylvania’s Republican Victory Program in 2010, and later was director of policy for the state Department of Labor and Industry.
Trump appointed him to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Local Government Advisory Committee and as a commissioner on the nonpartisan President's Commission on White House Fellowships.
Mackenzie serves on the executive council of the Lehigh Career & Technical Institute.
Foray into Politics
Mackenzie was first elected to the 134th House District on April 24, 2012, in a special election to fill the unexpired term of Republican Doug Reichley, who resigned after being elected Lehigh County judge in 2011.
In ensuing years, he easily defeated one Republican primary challenger and three Democratic challengers, capturing no less than 57.3% of the vote.
In 2022, under redistricting, Mackenzie’s home became part of the 187th district. The seat had been held by Republican Gary Day since 2008. Mackenzie won the primary election with 61% of the vote and was unopposed in the general election.
Mackenzie twice before announced his candidacy to represent the Lehigh Valley in Congress – in 2018, when it was part of the 15th District and then incumbent Republican Charlie Dent stepped down, and in 2022 when the Lehigh Valley became part of the 7th District. Each time he withdrew before the primary, focusing instead on being reelected to the state House.
This year Mackenzie is not simultaneously running in the 187th, leaving the door open for Day to get his seat back.
Time in Office
Mackenzie serves as Republican chair of the House Labor and Industry Committee.
He represents the House on the Pennsylvania Workforce Development Board, the Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Authority, the Recycling Fund Advisory Committee, the Aggregate Advisory Board, and the Commission on Education and Economic Competitiveness (2030 Commission). He served as deputy whip from 2015 to 2022 when the House was under Republican control.
Mackenzie is a prolific bill author, serving as the prime sponsor of more than 25 bills in the current legislative session that began in 2023. They include a series of bills that would reduce the state’s personal income and inheritance taxes, enact tax holidays for certain items and exclude taxes for child-related items such as cribs, strollers, books and toys.
“I have also worked very hard not just to vote the right way but to actually be a leader in Harrisburg,” he said.
Mackenzie’s campaign website details his four principles for America, which aim to “ensure that this nation, under God, has a new birth of freedom.” They include growing the economy, defending values, securing communities and restoring freedoms.
Mackenzie’s campaign committee had $137,615 in cash on hand at the start of the year. That compares to Dellicker, who had $205,692, and Montero, who had $59,887, according to campaign finance reports. Wild had nearly $1.6 million in cash on hand on Jan. 1. The next campaign finance report is due April 12.
ISSUES
Immigration
Mackenzie said Biden is to blame for “our country being invaded by thousands of illegal immigrants,” saying the president halted construction of Trump’s border wall.
According to the federal statistics, there was a record number of 2.5 million “encounters” with migrants trying to legally or illegally enter at the Mexican border in fiscal year 2023.
Mackenzie said he opposes the bipartisan border bill that was adopted in the U.S. Senate, but was blocked for consideration in the House of Representatives.
According to The New York Times, the bill would make it harder to gain asylum, expand the number of detention beds, hire more asylum officers and security agents, increase screenings for fentanyl and other illicit drugs and close the border if more than 5,000 migrants a day try to cross unlawfully in the course of a week or more than 8,500 in any given day.
It also would provide $60.1 billion for Ukraine, $14.1 billion in security assistance for Israel and $10 billion in humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones including Gaza, the West Bank and Ukraine.
While he supports provisions such as expanding beds and hiring more security agents, Mackenzie opposes other parts, including codifying a 5,000-a-day trigger that could be exercised with discretion for shutting down the border.
“We should be shutting down the border to all illegal crossings immediately and it should be mandatory,” he said.
At the state level, Mackenzie has introduced a series of bills to address illegal immigration. He was the author of the 2019’s passage of the Construction Industry Employee Verification Act, which requires employers in the construction industry to use the federal E-Verify system to ensure employees are authorized to work in the U.S. He is the prime sponsor of House Bill 274, which would require all public contractors and subcontractors to use the E-Verify system.
He is the prime sponsor of House Bill 1066 , which would require the Pennsylvania State Police to notify the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General of all attempts to purchase firearms by persons who are illegally or unlawfully in the U.S..
Blaming illegal immigration on a 276% increase in child labor law violations in Pennsylvania, he proposed House Bill 1714, which provides stronger penalties to employers who illegally hire minors and mandates notification to authorities of cases involving unaccompanied minors.
Abortion
Mackenzie said he is “pro-life. I have always voted to reduce the number of abortions that are occurring here in Pennsylvania,” he said.
Mackenzie voted yes to a 2017 bill that would ban abortions beyond 20 weeks of gestational age except in cases of irreversible health risk to the mother. He voted in favor of a 2021 joint resolution that included an amendment to Pennsylvania’s Constitution stating there is no constitutional right to taxpayer-funded abortion or other right relating to abortion. Neither measure was successful.
He voted in favor of a 2021 bill that would require the burial or cremation of abortion remains, a 2019 bill that would ban abortions because of a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome and a 2021 bill that would bar the use of telemedicine to prescribe mifepristone, which is used to induce medical abortions. None became law.
Mackenzie said he supports allowing abortions in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of a mother. He declined to give a gestational level for a ban in other cases, but noted that he did not become a sponsor of efforts to ban abortions once a heartbeat is detected.
He voted yes to 2023’s House Bill 1786, which would prevent public officials in Pennsylvania, where abortion is legal, from cooperating with authorities in other states from trying to prevent their residents from seeking abortions in Pennsylvania. The measure passed the House but did not receive a Senate vote.
He said he supports efforts to help mothers. He was the prime sponsor of a 2018 bill that established the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which reviews maternal death to develop strategies to reduce preventable morbidity, mortality and racial disparities related to pregnancy in the Commonwealth.
While Mackenzie said he hasn't read the exact language of any of the proposed IVF bills, including one introduced by Wild, he said he supports efforts to make sure that families have access to in vitro fertilization and that the procedure is not blocked at the state or federal level.
Ukraine
Mackenzie said he does not support giving more aid to Ukraine to fend off Russia’s invasion. He said that’s because of his America First policy. “We should be securing our border. We should be funding our crumbling infrastructure and our local communities. And so that kind of spending overseas does not directly help the American people in the way that I think we should be using our resources,” he said in an interview. Mackenzie said Ukraine has lost tens of thousands of lives and faces long-term demographic changes. Thus, he thinks it’s in the country’s best interest to find a “peaceful resolution” to the war.
Mackenzie said he supports NATO and if member countries were paying the required 2% of their gross national product on defense, there would be more money going to Ukraine. According to PBS News Hour, 18 of the 32 NATO member countries are paying 2%.
He also doesn’t believe a win for Russia in Ukraine would lead President Vladimir Putin to invade other countries.
“I fully understand people's concerns, but this is also the same rationale that neocons have used to support forever wars. And ever since World War II, they have used that same fearmongering to say, ‘We need to get involved in this international conflict because X or Y is going to break out of that region and take over the rest of the world.’ ”
Israel
Mackenzie said he thinks the Hamas deadly attack on Oct. 7, 2023, was “horrific.” He said he supports Israel’s right to defend itself. He said the priority for Israel now should be getting the hostages returned followed by negotiations for a peaceful resolution.
He said he supports a two-state solution but “with Hamas, which is a terrorist organization as the government in Gaza, that's not something that is probably achievable at this point in time.”
China
Mackenzie believes “China is the main strategic competitor that we have to keep our eye on around the world.” He said “bad policy coming out of Washington, D.C.,” has aided China economically and militarily. “We have been letting them take our jobs and ship our jobs overseas for years,” he said. Mackenzie said the U.S. needs to deal with China with “realism and restraint.” He said the U.S. needs to “build up our military so that we do have peace through strength.”
Guns
Mackenzie has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association. He voted against bringing House Bill 770 to the House floor in 2022. The bill would ban owning, selling or making high-capacity, semi-automatic weapons. He was a sponsor of 2023’s House Bill 63, which would provide better enforcement of existing law to prevent local governments from passing laws to restrict firearms and ammunition. There was no vote on the bill.
He opposed 2023’s House Bill 1018, which would allow law enforcement to temporarily seize firearms from persons deemed to be an immediate danger to themselves or others. The bill passed 102-99 but was not taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Mackenzie voted against 2023’s House Bill 714, which sought to end the background check exceptions for private sales of shotguns, sporting rifles and semi-automatic rifles. It passed the House 109-92 but has not gone to the Senate. He voted against 2023’s House Bill 338, which would require owners to report lost or stolen firearms. The measure failed 101-100.
Mackenzie voted in favor of Senate Bill 565, which would allow anyone who wanted to carry concealed firearms to do so without going through a background check or having to get a permit. Then-Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, vetoed the bill.
He voted against 2024’s House Bill 777, which would ban the purchase, sale and production of untraceable gun parts, so-called ghost guns. It passed the House 104-97 on March 27. It has not gone to the Senate.
Voting
Mackenzie voted in favor of 2019’s Act 77, which allowed mail-in voting for the first time in 2020. Mackenzie said he is not opposed to the law as written, but feels Democrats are attempting to usurp the power of legislators to enact election law by filing lawsuits challenging provisions such as requiring dates on outer envelopes.
Mackenzie was among the group of Republican Pennsylvania legislators who sought to temporarily withhold Electoral College votes from Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
The group filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin over a decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that, among other rulings, upheld Wolf’s decision to extend the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots by three days over pandemic-related concerns.
Asked why he signed onto the brief and whether Biden won the 2020 election, Mackenzie gave an answer using the analogy of a penalty flag being thrown in a football game.
“What I saw in the 2020 election was that Gov. Tom Wolf and the Democrat and liberal, very liberal, state Supreme Court changed the rules of the election in the middle of that process …,” he said.
“I threw the challenge flag. Ultimately, it went to court and it was not accepted. So the judges – or the referees in the analogy – did not agree with our challenge on the field. And the game ended. Joe Biden won the election. But that doesn't mean that we have to be silent on this issue.”
Mackenzie said he supports requiring voter IDs at the polls, banning insecure drop boxes and prohibiting private money from being used for election administration.
His campaign has created an election integrity team that plans to have poll watchers at precincts on Election Day to make sure every vote counts. There will also be a hotline so voters can report issues.
Education
Mackenzie said he doesn’t think the federal government should get involved in solving local education issues. “I think what we need to do is have engaged parents in the local communities,” he said.
Mackenzie was a sponsor of 2022’s House Bill 2813, which sought to prohibit classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through 5th grade and require public schools to adopt procedures for notifying parents if there is a change in services from the school regarding a child’s mental, emotional or physical health or well-being. No votes were taken.
He was a sponsor of House Bill 1432, which would create a school voucher program. No votes were held.
Mackenzie supported House Bill 972, which sought to ban transgender girls from female sports teams in public schools, colleges and universities. It was vetoed by Wolf.
He voted in favor of 2021’s House Bill 1332, which would require public school districts to publish on their websites the curriculum for each grade and subject area so parents can review lessons and textbooks. It was vetoed by Wolf.
Mackenzie is a co-sponsor of House Bill 1269, which would prevent the Department of Education from mandating that culturally relevant and sustaining education be part of the standards for educator training in Pennsylvania. No votes were taken.
Economy/taxes
Mackenzie said he has never voted for a tax increase. He blames Biden for the nation’s inflation rate, which peaked at 7% in 2021 and is now 3.2%, according to federal statistics. Despite the falling rate, Mackenzie said prices are too high for consumers, especially when it comes to food, rent and gas.
“There are a lot of people that are really struggling right now,” Mackenzie said.
Mackenzie said he wants to help small businesses by reducing taxes, reducing and streamlining regulations and providing more workforce training.
He has sponsored a number of measures to help ease the pressure on Pennsylvania residents and others.
He was a co-sponsor of 2023's House Bill 1100, which expanded the Property Tax/Rent Rebate program for renters and homeowners age 65 and older. It increased income limits by $10,000 to $45,000, making 175,000 more seniors eligible. It also raised the maximum rebate from $650 to $1,000. It was signed into law by Gov. Josh Shapiro.
He was the prime sponsor of 2013’s Act 52 which, among other provisions, eliminated the inheritance tax for small, family-owned businesses and eliminated the realty transfer tax for fire and ambulance companies going through a merger.
An idea he introduced in his Pennsylvania Families Tax Relief package became part of the Pennsylvania Fiscal Code that was adopted for the current fiscal year. The new law increases the child and dependent care tax credit to match the federal credit of up to $3,000 for one qualifying individual and $6,000 for two more qualifying individuals.
Other proposals in his package include reducing the personal income tax from 3.07% to 2.99% and reducing the inheritance tax for direct descendants and siblings from the current 4.5% and 12% to align with personal income tax rate.
Environment
Mackenzie said “the science is all over the place” when it comes to why the climate is changing. He said the focus should be on making sure the environment is clean. He said new technology involving wind, solar and natural gas can reduce dependence on “dirtier” sources of energy. He said the market, not the government, should be driving those changes. When it comes to regulations, he said there needs to be a “proper balance to make sure that we can grow our economy and protect our environment.”
He voted to stop implementation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), calling it a “cap-and-tax scheme that will cost PA energy jobs and increase energy costs for everyone.” Pennsylvania’s participation in RGGI was struck down by the state Commonwealth Court on Nov. 1. Shapiro recently proposed an alternative program.
Mackenzie noted that he was the prime sponsor of the 2020 approval of a bill that streamlined permitting for new and advanced technology businesses, including advanced recycling operations.