Kathy Pelleran-Mahoney
From Ballotpedia
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Kathy Pelleran-Mahoney (Democratic Party) (also known as KP) ran for election to the Michigan House of Representatives to represent District 102. She lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Pelleran-Mahoney completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Kathy Pelleran-Mahoney was born in Alpena, Michigan. She earned a bachelor's degree from Lake Superior State University in 1978 and a graduate degree from Western Michigan University in 2009. Her career experience includes working as a public administrator. Pelleran-Mahoney has been affiliated with Girl Scouts USA, White Lake Area Futures, the Muskegon County Democratic Party, the 2nd Congressional District Democratic Party, the Black Women's Political Caucus, the Progressive Democratic Women's Caucus, the White Lake Area Climate Action Council, Lebanon Lutheran Church, and St. James Catholic Church.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2024
General election
General election for Michigan House of Representatives District 102
Incumbent Curt VanderWall defeated Kathy Pelleran-Mahoney in the general election for Michigan House of Representatives District 102 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Curt VanderWall (R) | 63.8 | 34,218 |
Kathy Pelleran-Mahoney (D)  | 36.2 | 19,421 | ||
| Total votes: 53,639 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 102
Kathy Pelleran-Mahoney advanced from the Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 102 on August 6, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Kathy Pelleran-Mahoney | 100.0 | 6,258 | |
| Total votes: 6,258 | |||
| = 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 Michigan House of Representatives District 102
Incumbent Curt VanderWall advanced from the Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 102 on August 6, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Curt VanderWall | 100.0 | 10,113 |
| Total votes: 10,113 | |||
| = 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
Endorsements
Pelleran-Mahoney received the following endorsements. To view a full list of Pelleran-Mahoney's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here.
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Kathy Pelleran-Mahoney completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Pelleran-Mahoney's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Kathy Pelleran-Mahoney lives in Montague, Michigan with her husband, Ken. She is a bonus mom to two daughters and sons-in-law, with six grand kidders. Born in Alpena, she grew up on the Great Lakes from Alpena to Sault Ste. Marie, and the Straits of Mackinac, to Michigan's West Shore. She attended public schools in Alpena, graduated from Lake Superior State University, and has a graduate degree in Public Administration from Western Michigan University.
Kathy’s public service includes being a youth counselor at the Department of Social Services. She then worked for State Senator Mitch Irwin (D) before joining the staff of U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), and a member of Congress. She was an elected trustee for Lansing Community College. Most recently, she was the City Clerk for the City of Montague.
Kathy transferred what she’d learned in government to nonprofit organizations where she worked to advance policies for children and families, healthcare access and affordability, reproductive freedom, voting rights, early childhood education and care, afterschool programs for children and youth, public education that includes K-12, job skill programs, community colleges, and higher education. She also worked to advance agriculture policies and climate action policies including low-flow water fixtures and alternative fuels. She relocated to West Michigan where she worked for the United Way of the Lakeshore and continued Lakeshore Consulting.- Protecting our democratic values of equality, fairness, and justice are of concern to Pelleran-Mahoney. She believes that those values are girded by a strong public educational system and the right to vote; together, they bolster our democracy with established norms regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or age. We depend on our systems of democracy as a framework for stability. Yet, these tenets have been under constant assault in recent years. With the attack at our Nation’s Capitol, and the degradation of human rights, civil rights, reproductive freedom, continual hits on our rule of law, the barrage of strikes on our election process, and more, she is concerned that the rights she's had could be lost to her kids and grandkids.
- Pelleran-Mahoney's experience will be used in solving people's problems when she's elected. Kathy's nonprofit policy work has advanced health care for all, women’s rights to autonomy over medical decisions, protecting reproductive freedom, early childhood education and care, after-school program access, tobacco education and cessation, alternative fuel policies to reduce greenhouse gasses and our carbon footprint, programs to help increase family functioning and get troubled kids back on track, agriculture policy, disaster relief for farmers, and economic development and job creation. She believes in opportunities for people to get a good public education that can lead to fair work opportunities with fair wages.
- Kathy has been a strong proponent for people being able to live, learn, work, and play as members of thriving communities where they are able to meet their economic needs and prosper. Her strong public education was the basis for her ability to work worldwide. She maintains that the two greatest gifts of many to our people are a strong public education and our right to vote in free and fair elections. Through personal involvement, Kathy believes we are able to choose people as our representatives who will put our values forward through policies, and help us to navigate unfamiliar agency actions and procedures to resolve our concerns.
Pelleran-Mahoney is particularly passionate about policies related to public education opportunities birth to graduation, agriculture as an economic driver that is dependent upon clean air, water, and land; and ensuring opportunities for our people to access affordable family supports including childcare, healthcare, housing, and good jobs with fair pay and benefits.
Pelleran-Mahoney cites the upbringing she had by parents who valued education, fairness and justice, and a strong work ethic as the basis for her character. She also appreciates the opportunities that she had to learn from others including U.S. Senator Carl Levin and Senator Mitch Irwin, two former elected leaders she worked for who were diligent in pursuing legislative and administrative solutions to problems that people were experiencing with government.
Pelleran-Mahoney believes her philosophy is exemplified by being a servant-leader. Much of her career has been driven by her family, faith, and experiences through Girl Scouts USA as a life-long member and having worked with the Girl Scout council on older girl program. She has a public school education that she believes helped to prepare her for success throughout school and in her career.
Pelleran-Mahoney believes that
Pelleran-Mahoney believes that her sincerity and compassion, diligence, and a strong sense of humor will bode well as a state representative. She also believes that patience and working to keep lines of communication open with others will go a long way to accomplishing objectives.
Pelleran-Mahoney believes that being accessible and diligent in addressing concerns that people have in dealing with government are the utmost priority for the elective office that she is seeking. It might be a matter that can be rectified by inquiry with an agency of government, or through updating laws already on the books. She is committed to providing a high-level of service to people in her district.
Pelleran-Mahoney would like to be remembered as someone who was fair and honest, and cared to do her level best to help improve the lives of others.
The initial significant historical event that Pelleran-Mahoney experienced was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. She was in the 2nd grade and had just turned 8 three days prior.
Pelleran-Mahoney picked berries in the summers to help pay for half of her school clothes. She did this for 5 years before working in her family's produce / nursery market.
Pelleran-Mahoney doesn't have one favorite book, she has many and often finds herself reading several at a time. She's partial to John Grisham's writings, likes biographies, and poetry, though will pick up a book on muscle cars and enjoy it.
Muffin man by Adam Lambert is a tune he made up to a song by Cher. Pelleran-Mahoney smiles when she hears it and takes a while to forget about it afterward.
Pelleran-Mahoney says that she been a perfectionist, but now consciously moves past it to reach objectives. As a former basketball player, she's a strategic thinker and reminds herself to go to goal.
A relationship where lines of communication are open will aid in the negotiation process. Pelleran-Mahoney believes this is vital to visualize and meet mutual goals.
Pelleran-Mahoney believes that public health, public education, and public infrastructure development will continue to be challenging. Addressing them as a priority will bolster Michigan's appeal for both business investment and talent to locate and develop in the state,
Pelleran-Mahoney believes that having experience is helpful to those in elective office, but is not a prerequisite. She feels that her own public service and administrative experience have prepared her well for the office of state representative.
Pelleran-Mahoney believes that it is important to build relationships with legislative colleagues to gain bi-partisan support on legislation that effects the public at large. She is committed to working with and learning from her colleagues to the public benefit.
Having worked for U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Pelleran-Mahoney always admired his keen and tenacious approach to understanding policy and programs and the implications on the public. Like her former boss, she is solutions-oriented and considers his style as something to emulate.
Pelleran-Mahoney only wants to run for the State House and indicates that she's not interested in other offices.
Pelleran-Mahoney reflects on a young man's story about being passed from grade to grade who later dropped out because he couldn't read. She worked to tutor him and was able to secure his release from jail on a weekly basis to attend reading classes. He later shared that he appreciated her faith in him to help him learn to read.
That is a fairly broad question that is too open-ended to answer.
To provide driver's training in high school free of charge to students. This is similar to how it was done previously before the public service was privatized several decades ago.
It's early in the process, but Pelleran-Mahoney has already secured the Michigan Democratic Party Rural Caucus endorsement, endorsements from each of the four county democratic parties in her district, and endorsements from many countywide elected officials, county commissioners, and elected officials at the local levels of government.
Appropriations with subcommittees on Agriculture and Rural Development; Education & School Aid; Health & Human Services; and Labor and Economic Opportunity are all committees of greatest interest to Pelleran-Mahoney with their direct implications on her district and its people.
Pelleran-Mahoney strongly believes in governmental accountability and financial transparency. She's had decades of experience in
Pelleran-Mahoney has managed several ballot question campaigns in Michigan and Arizona and does not have suggestions for changes at this time, though is not opposed to changes if warranted.
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.
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
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Candidate Michigan House of Representatives District 102 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on May 13, 2024
Current members of the Michigan House of Representatives
Leadership
Speaker of the House:Matt Hall
Minority Leader:Ranjeev Puri
Representatives
District 1
Tyrone Carter (D)
District 2
Tullio Liberati (D)
District 3
Alabas Farhat (D)
District 4
Karen Whitsett (D)
District 5
Regina Weiss (D)
District 6
Natalie Price (D)
District 7
District 8
Helena Scott (D)
District 9
Joseph Tate (D)
District 10
Veronica Paiz (D)
District 11
Donavan McKinney (D)
District 12
Kimberly Edwards (D)
District 13
Mai Xiong (D)
District 14
Mike McFall (D)
District 15
Erin Byrnes (D)
District 16
Stephanie Young (D)
District 17
Laurie Pohutsky (D)
District 18
Jason Hoskins (D)
District 19
District 20
Noah Arbit (D)
District 21
Kelly Breen (D)
District 22
Matt Koleszar (D)
District 23
Jason Morgan (D)
District 24
Ranjeev Puri (D)
District 25
Peter Herzberg (D)
District 26
Dylan Wegela (D)
District 27
Rylee Linting (R)
District 28
Jamie Thompson (R)
District 29
James DeSana (R)
District 30
William Bruck (R)
District 31
Reggie Miller (D)
District 32
Jimmie Wilson (D)
District 33
Morgan Foreman (D)
District 34
District 35
Jennifer Wortz (R)
District 36
Steve Carra (R)
District 37
Brad Paquette (R)
District 38
Joey Andrews (D)
District 39
Pauline Wendzel (R)
District 40
Matt Longjohn (D)
District 41
Julie Rogers (D)
District 42
Matt Hall (R)
District 43
Rachelle Smit (R)
District 44
Steve Frisbie (R)
District 45
Sarah Lightner (R)
District 46
Kathy Schmaltz (R)
District 47
Carrie Rheingans (D)
District 48
Jennifer Conlin (D)
District 49
Ann Bollin (R)
District 50
Jason Woolford (R)
District 51
Matt Maddock (R)
District 52
Mike Harris (R)
District 53
Brenda Carter (D)
District 54
Donni Steele (R)
District 55
Mark Tisdel (R)
District 56
Sharon MacDonell (D)
District 57
Thomas Kuhn (R)
District 58
Ron Robinson (R)
District 59
Douglas Wozniak (R)
District 60
Joseph Aragona (R)
District 61
Denise Mentzer (D)
District 62
District 63
Jay DeBoyer (R)
District 64
Joseph Pavlov (R)
District 65
Jaime Greene (R)
District 66
Josh Schriver (R)
District 67
Phil Green (R)
District 68
David Martin (R)
District 69
Jasper Martus (D)
District 70
Cynthia Neeley (D)
District 71
Brian BeGole (R)
District 72
Mike Mueller (R)
District 73
Julie Brixie (D)
District 74
Kara Hope (D)
District 75
District 76
Angela Witwer (D)
District 77
Emily Dievendorf (D)
District 78
Gina Johnsen (R)
District 79
Angela Rigas (R)
District 80
Phil Skaggs (D)
District 81
Stephen Wooden (D)
District 82
Kristian Grant (D)
District 83
John Fitzgerald (D)
District 84
Carol Glanville (D)
District 85
Bradley Slagh (R)
District 86
Nancy De Boer (R)
District 87
William Snyder (D)
District 88
Greg VanWoerkom (R)
District 89
Luke Meerman (R)
District 90
Bryan Posthumus (R)
District 91
Pat Outman (R)
District 92
Jerry Neyer (R)
District 93
Tim Kelly (R)
District 94
Amos O'Neal (D)
District 95
Bill Schuette (R)
District 96
Timothy Beson (R)
District 97
Matthew Bierlein (R)
District 98
District 99
Mike Hoadley (R)
District 100
Tom Kunse (R)
District 101
Joseph Fox (R)
District 102
Curt VanderWall (R)
District 103
Betsy Coffia (D)
District 104
John Roth (R)
District 105
Ken Borton (R)
District 106
Cameron Cavitt (R)
District 107
Parker Fairbairn (R)
District 108
David Prestin (R)
District 109
Karl Bohnak (R)
District 110
Republican Party (58)
Democratic Party (52)
