Representative Donna Oberlander Contact information

Donna Oberlander is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. She was elected to her first term in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in November 2008. She serves as the majority whip, and has been appointed to the Rules Committee and the Committee on Committees.

Before she was elected to the House, Oberlander served as legislative aide to former State Representative Fred McIlhattan. She left that office to help local businesses grow and expand in Clarion County before being elected to the Clarion County Board of Commissioners in 2004.

Oberlander graduated from Clarion University with a bachelor’s degree in political science. Upon graduation, she married her high school sweetheart, a United States Marine stationed in Quantico, Virginia. While in Quantico, Oberlander worked for a government contractor tracking radio communications for Navy ships. She has two children.

Continuing to rely on her proven entrepreneurial and public sector experience to advance economic development opportunities and preserve traditional values to make Clarion and Armstrong counties an even better region to live, work and raise a family, Donna Oberlander was elected to serve her eighth term as state representative for the 63rd Legislative District in November 2022.

She currently serves at the Republican Chairman for the House Tourism and Economic and Recreational Development Committee. She previously served as Republican Whip (2020-2022); Policy Chairman (2018-2020); and, Caucus Secretary (2015-2018). She was the first Republican woman to serve as both Republican Whip and Policy Chairman and the first representative from the 63rd District to achieve this advanced leadership role.

She continues to serve as co-chairman of the House Diabetes Caucus and the House Manufacturing Caucus and is an active member of the House Pro Life Caucus, 2nd Amendment Caucus, Coal Caucus, State System of Higher Education Caucus, and the Oil and Gas Caucus. Her tenure in the House has also included membership on the following standing committees: Appropriations, Children and Youth, Environmental Resources and Energy, and Local Government, along with previously serving as a board member of the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority (PennVEST).

To date, seven of her bills have been signed into law, including Act 130 of 2022, which would permit for the driverless testing and deployment of autonomous cars and trucks on Pennsylvania roadways, leading to the creation of thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in investment in the Commonwealth. Her other laws include: Act 25 of 2021, which exempts large data centers from the sales and use tax for the purchase of large-scale equipment; and Act 7 of 2020, which requires the Pennsylvania Department of Health to regulate milk banks, which are entities that gather, process and distribute mothers’ milk for medically fragile newborns.

Other laws she has authored include Act 45, which renamed a local bridge in memory of a local hero who died in action in Afghanistan, and Act 13, which allowed Pennsylvania to opt out of abortion coverage through federal health care exchanges as part of the Affordable Care Act. She also authored Act 171 of 2016, which requires the state Department of General Services to establish a process to formally recognize all Pennsylvania-based minority-, woman- and veteran-owned businesses – also known as “diverse/disadvantaged” businesses – to make it easier to do business. She began her legislative career in spearheading the repeal of a Uniform Construction Code mandate that required sprinkler systems to be installed in all newly constructed residential housing (Act 1 of 2011).

Supplementing her work with the small business community and job creators, Donna is a member of the Pennsylvania Small Business Development Center’s (SBDC) Advisory Board and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center’s Advisory Committee.