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Taylor Picone
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Taylor Picone (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to represent District 124. He lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Picone completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Taylor Picone was born in Voorhees, New Jersey. He began serving in the U.S. Army in 2020. Picone received an associate degree from Valley Forge Military College in 2008, a bachelor's degree from Temple University in 2010, and was pursuing a master's degree from Villanova University as of the 2020 election. His professional experience includes being an operations supervisor for Norfolk Southern Railroad in Enola, PA.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: Pennsylvania House of Representatives elections, 2020
General election
General election for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 124
Incumbent Jerry Knowles defeated Taylor Picone in the general election for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 124 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jerry Knowles (R) | 72.0 | 23,111 |
 | Taylor Picone (D)  | 28.0 | 8,972 | |
| Total votes: 32,083 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 124
Taylor Picone advanced from the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 124 on June 2, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Taylor Picone | 100.0 | 4,133 |
| Total votes: 4,133 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 124
Incumbent Jerry Knowles advanced from the Republican primary for Pennsylvania House of Representatives District 124 on June 2, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Jerry Knowles | 100.0 | 8,138 |
| Total votes: 8,138 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign finance
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Taylor Picone completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Picone's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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My name is Taylor Picone and I am running to represent PA's 124th House District. I have been a proud PA resident since 1997 and have been residing in Berks County since 2016 with my wife Carrie and our four dogs. In August of 2020 we welcomed our first child, a son, named Oliver. I have been serving with the PA Army National Guard since 2006 and have had the pleasure to serve our communities during multiple natural disasters and multiple National Special Security Events and overseas deployments.
I also spent several years working in logistics and finical management with the U.S. Property and Fiscal Office for Pennsylvania. During this time I worked in several capacities to support over 15,000 Pennsylvania National Guard Airmen and Soldiers. This included procurement, storage, and distribution of clothing, food, ammunition, transportation, and and medical supplies.
I am currently studying at Villanova University for a Master's Degree in Public Administration.- Leadership Matters! With almost 14 years and counting serving our communities as an Officer with the National Guard, I know how important leadership is to getting the mission accomplished. Our district needs proactive leadership that will work to solve problems for the future, not just the next election.
- No Pennsylvania family should have to ration medication just to be able to afford their car payment or food. Illness doesn't care about your political party. We need to cap prescription costs to protect our families!
- Gerrymandering is wrong, no matter who is doing it. We need to pass Fair Districts legislation that removes the power of legislators to pick their voters. We must establish an independent citizen commission to draw fair unbiased representative districts.
1. Capping Prescription Co-pays: Making sure that no hard-working Pennsylvanian has to make a choice between paying for their medication or putting food on the table
2. Working towards School Property Tax relief/elimination. While elimination is the goal, there are many steps we can take to provide significant relief to home owners. These steps include generating new revenue for the state and increasing state funding on education. PA is currently 46th in the nation for state spending on education. Our children deserve better than that! We can also protect fixed income families by capping school property tax to a percentage of income.
My biggest heros are my dad and his mother. My grandmother Millie was the youngest of multiple children and the only one born in the US. Her family immigrated from Naples, Italy. When my father was a young boy, his father passed away suddenly from a stroke. At a young age my grandmother was suddenly alone, with two children, and no marketable skills to support them. She started working multiple part time jobs to support her family. She was the toughest but most kind person I ever met. She sacrificed so much to make sure her children were taken care of and instilled in my father a strong work ethic. My dad took those life lessons and put them to use serving in the US Air Force during Vietnam, putting himself through college and veterinary school at University of Pennsylvania. He went on to own and operate his own practice for over 20 years. Both my father and grandmother have a tenacious but empathetic approach to life that I do my best to emulate.
Yes. I carry a copy of Muddy Boots Leadership with me almost everywhere I go. It was given to me during my officer basic training by the author a retired Army major. The basic gist is this: "The late the hour, the worse the weather, the most important it is to see, and be seen." I believe leadership starts at the front. Showing up, leading by example, and empowering others along the way to improve the organization one person at a time.
Being a servant leader is what I think would make me a good officeholder. Being a servant leader means that your people and objectives come first. It is a "Mission First, People Always" mentality. I also think that empathy is an important quality for officeholders to have. The ability to understand someone else struggle, needs, or wants even if they are not your own. We need to be able to put ourselves in other peoples shoes and think about the decisions we make and how the impact people other than ourselves.
I once heard a quote that "A courtyard common to many, is swept by none." Meaning that things in life we are not directly responsible for we tend to ignore and leave to others to fix. I hope to leave a legacy of being a person who stopped, and swept the courtyard.
September 11th 2001. I was 13 years old and in 8th grade. I was sitting in Mrs. Basilo's geography class sitting next to a classmate named Andrea when another teacher came in and told her to turn on the news. She turned it on just as the second plane hit. I remember that afternoon my history teacher Mr. Angelo who was a young boy on Dec. 7th 1941, telling us that we would always remember exactly where we were, who we were with, and what we were doing when we heard the news. He was 100% right. Even though I was too young at the time to fully understand the long term implications I knew in the days that followed I wanted to join our nations military.
I worked at Hess Feed Supplies in Unionville, Pennsylvania. It was a small/local horse and farm supply store. I worked there for about a year and enjoyed it a lot. I learned to drive a manual transmission while working there because the forklift in the warehouse was a manual.
I attended Valley Forge Military Academy starting when I was a sophomore in high school. New students at VF are called "Plebes" and have to go through a six week plebe system. During that time you are cut off from any creature comforts and contact with friends and family. You are forced to refer to yourself in the third person, ask permission to do literally anything including eat and use the bathroom, and for six weeks you have no personal time or freedom. For a young high school student to enter that world knowing no one at all was a challenge and it was not always easy. Struggles make us stronger as a person though and I know a lot of my success in life has come from completing that plebe system. It taught me that if I could make it through that I could make it through anything.
While I do not think it is a requirement, I do think it is a benefit. I have over a decade of experience working for and alongside state and federal government agencies and I know that experience gives me an insight and reduces the learning curve for a new lawmaker. I already have knowledge of how government functions and that will allow me to hit the ground running.
Economic recovery from COVID19. We have to work hard to recover and make sure that we are bringing everyone along with us and not just a select few. We need to explore new revenue streams like legalizing adult use marijuana and an excise tax on natural gas. We will also need to take a hard look at where to make cuts. Additionally we need to identify the right areas for investment. I think a key area of investment needs to be public infrastructure and it should go beyond just roads and bridges. It needs to include high speed internet for our rural communities and building a public transportation system to connect our regional economies. These types of investments will create long term, high quality, good paying jobs that will offer a good return on investment.
An ideal relationship is one that is collaborative. In 2020, COVID19 has shown us what the worst kind of relationship looks like. Our republican controlled legislature repeatedly excluded the Democratic minority from even offering amendments to legislation and then attempted to place that legislation before a Democratic governor. This led to frequent unilateral actions from the executive branch. Divided government makes it difficult to pass some legislation but it should not prevent the two branches from working together on plenty of initiatives that are good for the people. A response to a public health emergency should never be this politicized.
Absolutely! 14 years in the Army has thought me many things but one of the most important things I learned was that being in a position of authority does not make you the smartest person in the room. Good leaders surround themselves with smart allies as well as people willing to tell them the truth and point out bad ideas or mistakes. It is critical in order to be sucessful to develop relationships with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.
I favor house bills 22 and 23, the fair districts initiative that would create an independent citizen's commission to draw non partisan district lines.
I want to be a part of the State Government Committee because I want to see that we address Gerrymandering as quickly as possible.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 12, 2020
Current members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Leadership
Speaker of the House:Joanna McClinton
Majority Leader:Kerry Benninghoff
Minority Leader:Jesse Topper
Representatives
District 1
Patrick Harkins (D)
District 2
Robert Merski (D)
District 3
Ryan Bizzarro (D)
District 4
Jake Banta (R)
District 5
Eric Weaknecht (R)
District 6
Bradley Roae (R)
District 7
Parke Wentling (R)
District 8
Aaron Bernstine (R)
District 9
Marla Brown (R)
District 10
Amen Brown (D)
District 11
Marci Mustello (R)
District 12
District 13
John Lawrence (R)
District 14
Roman Kozak (R)
District 15
Joshua Kail (R)
District 16
Robert Matzie (D)
District 17
Tim Bonner (R)
District 18
K.C. Tomlinson (R)
District 19
Aerion Abney (D)
District 20
Emily Kinkead (D)
District 21
Lindsay Powell (D)
District 22
Joshua Siegel (D)
District 23
Dan Frankel (D)
District 24
La'Tasha Mayes (D)
District 25
Brandon Markosek (D)
District 26
Paul Friel (D)
District 27
Daniel Deasy (D)
District 28
Jeremy Shaffer (R)
District 29
Tim Brennan (D)
District 30
Arvind Venkat (D)
District 31
Perry Warren (D)
District 32
Joe McAndrew (D)
District 33
Mandy Steele (D)
District 34
District 35
Dan Goughnour (D)
District 36
Jessica Benham (D)
District 37
Mindy Fee (R)
District 38
John Inglis (D)
District 39
Andrew Kuzma (R)
District 40
Natalie Mihalek (R)
District 41
Brett Miller (R)
District 42
Dan Miller (D)
District 43
Keith Greiner (R)
District 44
Valerie Gaydos (R)
District 45
Anita Kulik (D)
District 46
Jason Ortitay (R)
District 47
Joe D'Orsie (R)
District 48
Timothy O'Neal (R)
District 49
District 50
Bud Cook (R)
District 51
District 52
Ryan Warner (R)
District 53
Steven Malagari (D)
District 54
Greg Scott (D)
District 55
Jill Cooper (R)
District 56
Brian Rasel (R)
District 57
Eric Nelson (R)
District 58
Eric Davanzo (R)
District 59
Leslie Rossi (R)
District 60
Abby Major (R)
District 61
Liz Hanbidge (D)
District 62
James Struzzi (R)
District 63
Josh Bashline (R)
District 64
R. James (R)
District 65
Kathy Rapp (R)
District 66
Brian Smith (R)
District 67
Martin Causer (R)
District 68
Clint Owlett (R)
District 69
Carl Metzgar (R)
District 70
Matthew Bradford (D)
District 71
Jim Rigby (R)
District 72
Frank Burns (D)
District 73
Dallas Kephart (R)
District 74
Dan Williams (D)
District 75
Mike Armanini (R)
District 76
District 77
Scott Conklin (D)
District 78
Jesse Topper (R)
District 79
Louis Schmitt (R)
District 80
Scott Barger (R)
District 81
Richard Irvin (R)
District 82
Paul Takac (D)
District 83
Jamie Flick (R)
District 84
Joe Hamm (R)
District 85
David Rowe (R)
District 86
Perry Stambaugh (R)
District 87
Thomas Kutz (R)
District 88
Sheryl Delozier (R)
District 89
Rob Kauffman (R)
District 90
Chad Reichard (R)
District 91
Dan Moul (R)
District 92
Marc Anderson (R)
District 93
Mike Jones (R)
District 94
Wendy Fink (R)
District 95
Carol Hill-Evans (D)
District 96
Nikki Rivera (D)
District 97
Steven Mentzer (R)
District 98
Tom Jones (R)
District 99
David Zimmerman (R)
District 100
Bryan Cutler (R)
District 101
John Schlegel (R)
District 102
Russell Diamond (R)
District 103
Nate Davidson (D)
District 104
Dave Madsen (D)
District 105
Justin Fleming (D)
District 106
Thomas Mehaffie (R)
District 107
Joanne Stehr (R)
District 108
Michael Stender (R)
District 109
Robert Leadbeter (R)
District 110
Tina Pickett (R)
District 111
Jonathan Fritz (R)
District 112
Kyle Mullins (D)
District 113
Kyle Donahue (D)
District 114
District 115
Maureen Madden (D)
District 116
Dane Watro (R)
District 117
Jamie Walsh (R)
District 118
James Haddock (D)
District 119
Alec Ryncavage (R)
District 120
Brenda Pugh (R)
District 121
Eddie Pashinski (D)
District 122
Doyle Heffley (R)
District 123
Tim Twardzik (R)
District 124
Jamie Barton (R)
District 125
Joe Kerwin (R)
District 126
Jacklyn Rusnock (D)
District 127
Manuel Guzman (D)
District 128
Mark Gillen (R)
District 129
District 130
David Maloney (R)
District 131
Milou Mackenzie (R)
District 132
District 133
Jeanne McNeill (D)
District 134
Peter Schweyer (D)
District 135
Steve Samuelson (D)
District 136
Robert Freeman (D)
District 137
Joe Emrick (R)
District 138
Ann Flood (R)
District 139
Jeff Olsommer (R)
District 140
Jim Prokopiak (D)
District 141
Tina Davis (D)
District 142
Joseph Hogan (R)
District 143
Shelby Labs (R)
District 144
Brian Munroe (D)
District 145
Craig Staats (R)
District 146
Joseph Ciresi (D)
District 147
Donna Scheuren (R)
District 148
Mary Daley (D)
District 149
Tim Briggs (D)
District 150
Joseph Webster (D)
District 151
Melissa Cerrato (D)
District 152
Nancy Guenst (D)
District 153
Ben Sanchez (D)
District 154
Napoleon Nelson (D)
District 155
District 156
District 157
District 158
Christina Sappey (D)
District 159
Carol Kazeem (D)
District 160
Craig Williams (R)
District 161
Leanne Krueger (D)
District 162
David Delloso (D)
District 163
Heather Boyd (D)
District 164
Gina Curry (D)
District 165
Jennifer O'Mara (D)
District 166
Gregory Vitali (D)
District 167
Kristine Howard (D)
District 168
Lisa Borowski (D)
District 169
Kate Klunk (R)
District 170
Martina White (R)
District 171
District 172
Sean Dougherty (D)
District 173
District 174
Ed Neilson (D)
District 175
Mary Isaacson (D)
District 176
Jack Rader (R)
District 177
District 178
Kristin Marcell (R)
District 179
Jason Dawkins (D)
District 180
Jose Giral (D)
District 181
Malcolm Kenyatta (D)
District 182
Benjamin Waxman (D)
District 183
Zachary Mako (R)
District 184
District 185
Regina Young (D)
District 186
Jordan Harris (D)
District 187
Gary Day (R)
District 188
Rick Krajewski (D)
District 189
Tarah Probst (D)
District 190
Roni Green (D)
District 191
Joanna McClinton (D)
District 192
Morgan Cephas (D)
District 193
Torren Ecker (R)
District 194
Tarik Khan (D)
District 195
Keith Harris (D)
District 196
Seth Grove (R)
District 197
Danilo Burgos (D)
District 198
Darisha Parker (D)
District 199
Barbara Gleim (R)
District 200
Christopher Rabb (D)
District 201
Andre Carroll (D)
District 202
Jared Solomon (D)
District 203
Anthony Bellmon (D)
Democratic Party (102)
Republican Party (101)
