Senator Dan Laughlin

Senator Dan Laughlin was elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate in 2016 to represent the 49th Senatorial District, which includes nearly all of Erie County. He was reelected for a second term in November 2020. Sen. Laughlin serves as Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee and Vice Chairman of the Game and Fisheries Committee. He serves as a member of four other Senate committees: Banking and Insurance; Community, Economic and Recreational Development; Labor and Industry; and Rules and Executive Nominations. He also serves as the Senate representative on the Advisory Council of the Pennsylvania Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home in Erie, one of Pennsylvania’s six veterans’ homes. Born in Erie and raised in the Erie Heights housing project, Sen. Laughlin is the son of a decorated World War II combat veteran who worked as a union carpenter and a mother who assembled fighter planes at the Curtis Wright Plant in Buffalo. One of four children, Sen. Laughlin contributed to the family income during his formative years by mowing lawns, delivering the Erie Daily Times, working at a strawberry farm and being employed as a vertical lathe worker and homebuilder. Sen. Laughlin joined his brother’s construction firm and later bought into the company as a full partner. Laughlin Builders was one of the region’s premier builders of quality homes. Twenty years later, the brothers formed Waste Away, a trash disposal company, which they later sold to Pro Waste Corp. Their portfolio of companies expanded to include Clear Water Foam, an insulating firm, as well as Laughlin Properties, a rental company. As a small business owner, Sen. Laughlin strongly supports policies and programs that create jobs, limit government spending and ease the tax and regulatory burden on job-creators. A strong advocate for government reform, he is committed to making state government accessible and accountable to the people he serves. Sen. Laughlin is married to the former Peggy Schneider, a mechanical engineer. They have two sons, Spencer and Nathaniel, and a daughter, Sinclaire. The family attends Grace Church in McKean.