Kate M Harper

Early life and education

In 1974, Kate Harper graduated from Gwynedd Mercy Academy High School before attending La Salle University. She graduated maximus cum laude with a degree in political science. She attended Villanova University School of Law and graduated in 1981. She was a partner at Hamburg, Rubin, Mullin & Maxwell from 1985-90, a partner at Hepburn, Willcox, Hamilton & Putnam from 1990-94, and a partner at Delricci, Harper, Zentgraf & Czaplicki P.C. from 1993-98. She has been a partner at Timoney Knox LLP since 1998. Harper is one of only a handful of lawyers from Montgomery County who have argued a case before the United States Supreme Court.

She lives in Lower Gwynedd Township and has two children.

Local government

After Harper graduated from law school in 1981, she began practicing as an attorney. After establishing herself at Hamburg, Rubin, Mullin & Maxwell in 1985, she dove into the sphere of local government. In 1986, she was appointed to the Lower Gwynedd Township Planning Commission and was elected to her first term as township supervisor. She served as the chairman of the Lower Gwynedd Township Board of Supervisors for several years.

Harper was a member of Montgomery County's first Open Space Task Force in 1993 and chaired the Montgomery County Green Fields Green Towns Task Force in 2003. The task force designed and implemented a plan to raise $150 million to preserve farmland, buy open space, create new parks and trails, re-green towns and boroughs, and revitalize urban parks in the county.

In Lower Gwynedd, Harper led the fight to save the Penllyn Woods, a 77-acre parcel containing native forests and wetlands along the Wissahickon Creek.

Political career

In 2000, Harper decided to run for her Pennsylvania District's State Representative Office. Its holder, Joseph M. Gladeck Jr., had held office since 1979 and was set to retire.

When asked about the obstacles she faced when running for the House, Harper said she believes that most people in the district, "voters, party people and folks most likely to contribute to political causes were simply used to men running. I felt I had to repeatedly validate myself as a serious candidate who had the skills temperament and commitment both to win a hotly contested election, and then to serve as a member of the General Assembly... Fortunately... having a background in both local government and as a local lawyer helped me with these things. Many people worried about how I was going to handle the campaign, the job of State Representative 100 miles from home and my family. Luckily, I have a lot of energy."

When asked about those who supported her during the 2000 campaign, Harper was quick to point out that her husband, Paul J. Kelly, CPA, "rose to the challenge of helping me campaign, and keeping the home fires burning while I was out shaking hands. He also was a great emotional support when the negative campaigning started in earnest..."

Harper's great grandfather, Thomas B. Harper, was elected to the state Senate. Harper said he "promptly had a heart attack during his first term. Since he left a widow and nine children behind, that experience sort of soured the family on politics for a while."

Harper received the 2001 Governor's Individual Award for Excellence in Local Government for her distinguished record of public service in Montgomery County. She was also named as the legislative "Rookie of the Year" during her first term by the Pennsylvania Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter. In 2002, the political website PoliticsPA named her to the list of "Smartest Legislators," describing her as a "policy wonk of policy wonks."

Harper has been prominent in leadership for environmental preservation and safety. She was a major supporter of preserving and enhancing the state's Growing Greener program. The program, first enacted in 1999, was designed to ensure proper waste disposal and safety throughout the state. The act was reauthorized in 2002. Harper led legislature that extended the fee on trash sent to landfills (Act 90 of 2002) in order to support environmental initiatives, expanding the dollar allocation for projects including:

In late 2003, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell formed the Statewide Water Resources Committee to help Pennsylvania make further progress in water resource management and conservation, naming Kate Harper to represent Local Government and Environmental Interests on the committee.

Harper's work in helping to preserve Pennsylvania's natural resources earned her the Heritage Conservancy's Conservation Award in 2003. That year, she was also recognized by the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association for her steadfast commitment to land conservation and her leadership role with the Environmental Stewardship Fund. She was awarded the Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy's Land Use Award in 2004.

Harper was the prime architect of the Growing Greener II initiative (Act 1 of 2005). Extending the first initiative, Growing Greener II was a voter approved plan to invest $625 million over seven years to clean rivers and streams, protect natural areas, open spaces and working farms, shore up key programs to improve quality of life and revitalize communities across the commonwealth. Growing Greener II was the largest single investment of state funds in Pennsylvania's history to address Pennsylvania's critical environmental concerns of the 21st century.

In 2005, Harper received the Distinguished Service Award from the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association for her work promoting sound management of the Commonwealth's environmental infrastructure.

In 2006, Harper introduced legislation to repeal a state-imposed child support tax. Under Pennsylvania law, the government takes an annual fee or tax from parents who receive over $2000 in child support. Harper, at the time of its passage, was a vocal opponent of the proposal. She noted in 2006 that the state receives $175 million in child support enforcement from the federal government each year. "We ought to be able to use that money to meet the federal requirement", she said. "Yes, the state budget is tight too, but as long as the Commonwealth has money for the bogus Hollywood Film Tax Credit program, parents should not have to pay to collect support for their children."

Harper played a key role in the writing of impact fee legislation (Act 13 of 2012) to direct a portion of funding generated from natural gas drilling in the Commonwealth to statewide environmental programs.

During the 2013-14 session, Harper's legislation to help make counseling and other mental health services more accessible to veterans and their family members was signed into law. The idea for the legislation came from a doctor in Blue Bell who was not permitted, under prior state law, to volunteer to provide free mental health services to military personnel and their families through the national "Give an Hour" program because the services are provided outside of a clinic setting.

In the two most recent elections, Harper brought in 13,727 votes or 60.69 percent of the vote to Leonard's 8,875 or 39.24 percent, with 100 percent of the vote reported in the 2014 election, according to unofficial results posted on the Montgomery County website. In 2016, she won 20,234 votes or 56.6 percent of the vote to Robert Wilkinson's 15,518 votes or 43.4 percent.

On April 25, 2017, Harper introduced legislature (HR273 of 2017) encouraging equitable and diverse gender representation on the boards and in senior management of companies in Pennsylvania. It was passed on the House Floor on April 26.

Across her tenure as a State Representative, Harper has served as Chairman of the:

She has served on the:

Awards

Harper has received numerous awards due to her dedicated public service and being an advocate for the environment. These awards recognize her achievements: