Marcel L. Groen (Born November 2, 1945) is an American lawyer and the former Chairman of the

Pennsylvania Democratic Party The Pennsylvania Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is headquartered in Harrisburg and is the largest political party in the state. Its chair is Senator Sharif Street. Governor Tom Wo ...

from 2015 until his resignation on February 2, 2018. Before being selected as the state party chairman, Groen's political experience in Pennsylvania included as Finance Chair of the Bucks County and Montgomery County Democratic Parties as well as Chairman of Montgomery County Democratic Committee since 1994.

Early life and education

Groen was born November 2, 1945, in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, the son of Rabbi Nardus and Sipora Groen, a

holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

survivor. Groen and his family came to America when he was 10 years old. Groen graduated from

Walnut Hills High School , streetaddress = 3250 Victory Parkway , city = Cincinnati , state = Ohio , zipcode = 45207 , country = United States , coordinates = , type ...

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, in 1963. He received a BA from

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...

in 1967 and a JD from Temple University School of Law in 1970.

Career

Groen was the founding partner of Groen, Laveson, Goldberg & Rubenstone in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, Montgomery County Bar Association, Bucks County Bar Association. Groen was a partner at Fox Rothschild LLP working out of the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania office.

Controversy

In 2017 and 2018, Groen came under fire for his alleged failure to respond to calls to address what female party leaders and local activists have characterized as a culture of sexual predation within the party. Critics cite Groen's silence on sexual misconduct allegations against prominent state politicians, his failure to fulfill a commitment to create a party sexual misconduct policy after the alleged sexual assault of a state party delegate at the 2016 DNC, and his anger over calls to dismiss a close aide's controversial statements about the #MeToo movement as evidence of Groen's unwillingness to address sexual misconduct within the party.

References

External links

* 1945 births Dutch emigrants to the United States Living people Pennsylvania Democratic Party chairs Temple University alumni Walnut Hills High School alumni {{Pennsylvania-politician-stub