Meanwhile, Barletta's longtime opponent Kanjorski accused the mayor of creating the city's financial woes through mismanagement.

Immigration

Barletta championed Hazleton's Illegal Immigration Relief Act, a 2005 city ordinance which made English the official language and forbade anyone from employing illegal immigrants or renting property to them.

During Barletta's first six years as mayor, the number of Hispanic people in Hazleton grew tenfold. In 2006, that ethnic group made up about a third of the city's 31,000 citizens. No one knew how many were in the country illegally.

At the same time, the city of Hazleton began to face serious financial problems. The mayor partially blamed this on the undocumented immigrants. Because, he said, they did not have the legal right to own property and most worked in factories outside the city limits, they did not pay income or property taxes to Hazleton, yet they relied on city services that were being strained to the breaking point.

When two courts struck down the ordinance, Barletta accused the federal government of shirking its responsibilities to enforce immigration laws already on the books and vowed to continue appealing the decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The problem is that the federal government refuses to regulate the immigration problems that we're having in Hazleton and yet tells us that we can't defend ourselves," he said.

Energy

In 2009, Barletta engineered a plan to save his city from a dire financial situation-by going green.

With Hazleton facing $2 million in debt, Barletta announced a plan to sell the city's water authority to raise money to build a solar plant. Barletta said the plan could raise $1.5 million a year while making his city one of the greenest in the nation.

The plan was controversial among water-authority employees, city employees and citizens, and Barletta's congressional opponents claimed his math didn't add up.

Social Security

The future of the Social Security program became a hot-button issue in Barletta's 2010 campaign against Kanjorksi, mostly because each side accused the other of misrepresenting their true stance on the issue.

Barletta said he is staunchly opposed to privatizing Social Security, despite his opponent's attempts to paint his views otherwise, making him a bit more liberal than many other 2010 Republican candidates on the issue.

"I've taken a pledge that I oppose any attempt to privatize Social Security," Barletta told a local newspaper. "I oppose any attempt to cutting Social Security benefits, and I oppose any attempt to raise the retirement age."

Tea Party

Barletta spoke at a tax-day event held by the local Scranton Tea Party, a part of the conservative grassroots movement believed to be 2010's kingmaker. He was not endorsed by any Tea Party groups.

Health Care

In 2008, Barletta said he opposed "government-run health care" because he and many others Republicans had lost faith in the government's ability to oversee it. He said individuals should be given tax credits with which to buy health insurance, people should be allowed to buy insurance form other states and the government should fund wellness programs.

In 2010, he criticized Kanjorski for voting in favor of Obama's health-care overhaul, which Barletta said "will take $500 billion out of Medicare."

Kanjorski called Barletta's claim about cuts to Medicare untrue.

The new law will save the government $533 million over 10 years, but Medicare spending will continue to grow, only at a slower rate of 5.5 instead of 6.8 percent, according to the Congressional Budget office.

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