Election 2025: Danny Ceisler For Bucks County Sheriff

Candidates running in the Nov. 4 general election are providing background about themselves and their positions on the issues to voters in these profiles, which will run in Patch individually for each candidate.

BUCKS COUNTY, PA ? Two candidates are running for the job of Bucks County Sheriff. Democrat Danny Ceisler is challenging incumbent Republican Fred Harran. The job of sheriff involves executing court orders like arrest warrants and serving legal documents, providing security and prisoner transport for the courts, and managing tasks like firearms permitting and enforcing protection from abuse orders. The sheriff oversees more than 75 deputies who carry out these duties.

Biological Information

Name: Danny Ceisler
Age: 33
Town of residence: Bristol Borough
Position sought: Sheriff
What Towns Does Your Position Cover: Bucks County
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Family: Wife, Helen
Education: J.D., Temple University Law School; B.A. The George Washington University
Occupation: Candidate (previously Director of Strategic Initiatives ? Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, resigned to run for this office), Attorney, Military Officer

Questions

Why are you running for office?

I have spent my entire career in nonpartisan public safety leadership. From earning a Bronze Star on a Special Operations Counterterrorism Task Force in Afghanistan, to serving on three Crisis Management Teams at the Pentagon, to fighting for law enforcement officers and victims of crime as an attorney, and leading statewide public safety initiatives in close partnership with the Pennsylvania State Police - my life has been dedicated to protecting my community, my commonwealth, and my country.

As an attorney and a senior public safety official at the state level, I have seen how a well-run Sheriff?s Office can effectively protect the vulnerable and enhance the efficiency of the criminal and civil justice systems. I have also seen the flip side - a poorly run office can paralyze a justice system and endanger a community. Unfortunately, the current Sheriff?s ineffective leadership and mismanagement of resources has created a backlog of thousands of outstanding criminal warrants, putting my family?s safety at risk and undermining the justice system?s ability to handle crime.

I am running for Sheriff of Bucks County because there is a need for strong leadership in this office, my skillset and experience align perfectly with the requirements of the job, and it is an outstanding opportunity to continue to serve the public.

Why are you the best person for the job?

Over the past fifteen years, I have led teams in every functional area relevant to the Sheriff?s Office. From coordinating detainee transfers and planning security missions - akin to the Sheriff?s responsibilities of prisoner transport and courthouse security; to planning dozens of raids and training extensively in room clearance and detention techniques - akin to the service of criminal warrants; to leading large teams, managing government budgets and building coalitions - core skills for any government executive; I have the experience, training, and leadership skills to step into the role of Bucks County Sheriff and serve the community effectively from day one.

For those reasons, Sheriff Sean Kilkenny of Montgomery County, who was selected by his peers statewide to lead the Pennsylvania Sheriff?s Association, endorsed me and noted that my track record has prepared me perfectly to assume this role. If anyone knows the qualifications to be an outstanding Sheriff, it is him.

More than anything, what sets me apart from my opponent is that I understand both what the Sheriff?s Office is and what it isn?t. The office plays a crucial role in Bucks County?s justice system, and it is essential that the next Sheriff executes the core mission of the office rather than pursuing initiatives that distract from it and encroach on the jurisdiction of other agencies. The incumbent has proven to be deficient in this respect.

The Sheriff?s Office is not another police department, and the Sheriff is not a police chief. The Sheriff?s Office is the law enforcement arm of the courts. It is responsible for transporting prisoners, securing the courthouse, serving warrants and protection from abuse orders, performing sheriff?s sales, and issuing licenses to carry firearms. I will be laser focused on executing this mission effectively and efficiently, and I will not waste taxpayer resources seeking to turn this office into another police department while failing to perform the basic responsibilities of the office.

While the incumbent will point to a variety of ?accomplishments,? voters should know they come at the expense of decreased public safety and increased inefficiencies in the justice system. Since the current Sheriff has assigned over ten deputies to ?special assignments? unrelated to the mission of the office and assigned only four to the service of criminal warrants, we now have a backlog of well over 5,000 outstanding criminal warrants in the county. The current Sheriff?s oft-repeated claim that he has ?reduced the number of warrants by 40 percent? has been fully debunked - the alleged reduction is actually due to the transfer of over a thousand warrants to the county probation department; thereby reducing the Sheriff Office?s number of outstanding warrants, but not the county?s.

The current Sheriff has misallocated manpower in the office to such an extent that the number of deputies assigned to criminal warrant service could be tripled under proper management. To be clear, each of these outstanding warrants represents a fugitive from justice. Under my leadership, hunting these fugitives will be a top priority for my office and I will not permit my team to be distracted by initiatives that may look good in campaign ads but ultimately cost the community dearly.

What do you see as the biggest issue facing the office and how would you address it?

The biggest issue is the gross misuse of resources for purposes outside the office?s core mission. I plan to rein in the excesses under the office?s current leadership and reallocate manpower to augment the criminal warrant division. I also plan to lead from the front - I will personally be on the streets serving warrants alongside my command staff. To more effectively track the most dangerous fugitives, I will reassign at least one deputy from a ?special assignment? to a full-time criminal intelligence role. This position will be dedicated to using government databases and social media to identify the most likely locations of the fugitives my office is responsible for bringing to justice. The Sheriff?s Office already has the manpower and funding it needs to perform its essential public safety functions - it is just a matter of using those resources more wisely.

What are your views on ICE?

My only goal as Sheriff will be keeping Bucks County safe. That?s why I oppose the current partnership between the Bucks County Sheriff?s Office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). To be clear, I believe the United States must secure its borders, and individuals in the country illegally who commit serious crimes - such as drug trafficking or acts of violence - should be deported. That has been the standard practice in both Bucks County and across the nation for decades. For many years, every individual who is booked in our county jail is fingerprinted and their information is submitted to law enforcement agencies across the country, including ICE. From there, ICE has access to our jail and their local agents can detain anyone who is in the country illegally. If the agents are unable to get to the correctional facility quick enough, all they need to do is ask a judge to sign a warrant for that person to continue to be held. This level of cooperation was occurring well before the Sheriff?s expanded partnership with ICE, and it will continue under my leadership.

The current Sheriff?s partnership with ICE is unnecessary to ensure the deportation of criminals, it is a distraction to an office already failing to perform some of its basic responsibilities, and it endangers public safety by compromising the relationship between local law enforcement and immigrant communities. This partnership has sown fear in immigrant neighborhoods and discouraged victims and witnesses of crime from coming forward, severely undermining public safety for the entire community. For that reason, leading police organizations have strongly discouraged mixing local law enforcement with immigration enforcement. These partnerships also expose taxpayers to costly lawsuits tied to federal 287(g) agreements.

The Sheriff?s current explanation (which has changed several times amidst public backlash) for why he wants to use the program is that he merely wants access to ICE databases to cross-reference against the ballooning list of outstanding warrants in the county. Not only is this unnecessary given that ICE already has access to our detainees, but the explanation is contradicted by his own actions. There are multiple models of the 287(g) ICE partnerships that convey varying levels of immigration enforcement authority to local law enforcement agencies. The current Sheriff signed on to what is, far and away, the most expansive model - granting his deputies far-reaching powers to question and detain ?any person believed to be an alien.?

The truth is simple: the ICE partnership does not make Bucks County safer. It is a political stunt intended only to endear the current Sheriff to the Trump administration and the President?s far-right base. All the while, the partnership wastes valuable law enforcement resources that could be spent more productively and it puts our communities at greater risk.