Apr 16, 2016 7 min read

The legislator with the most seniority in Washington County and fourth most in the Pennsylvania General Assembly will be retiring at the end of this year, giving politicos and pundits an opportunity to weigh in on the implications – or lack thereof – for the county.

State law imposes no limit on the number of terms one can serve, and state Rep. Pete Daley, D-California, is finishing out his 17th.

Daley, 65, has another take on the 34 years he’s been representing the 49th Legislative District.

“Every two years is a term limit, because guess what, if they don’t like you, they vote you out,” he said in an interview in the California Borough Building, a newer, sleeker version of the municipal digs he occupied when, in his 20s, he was known as “the boy mayor.”

Trading in his mayoral authority to marry couples in civil ceremonies for a seat in the nation’s largest full-time state legislature in 1983, Daley, a former schoolteacher, replaced attorney A.J. DeMedio of Donora, who retired after 16 years in the General Assembly.

“It takes years to know where the bathrooms are, to know where the right offices are,” Daley said. “I mean, it takes time, it truly does.”

Daley may have entered the House as a former teacher and mayor, but he earned a law degree after going to Harrisburg, setting up his practice first in California and then in Brownsville.

“I have a high respect for Pete Daley,” said Joseph DiSarro, chairman of the political science department at Washington & Jefferson College. “We are friends. I think he’s a very competent person, a lawyer, legislator and public servant.”

Since 2010, referred to in political jargon as a “wave election,” Republicans have held a majority in both the state House and Senate, and Daley is a Democrat.

“They are, in effect, the loyal opposition. So how much clout does someone have who’s in the minority?” asked DiSarro, a GOP member who calls anyone who’s been in that office more than 20 years a “professional legislator.”

Average voters, DiSarro opined, don’t feel as though they are part of the system, but the professor said he believes “in citizen-legislators as opposed to professional legislators, although there are downsides to both.”

“We’ll regret losing Pete, not because of his seniority, but because of his competence,” DiSarro said. Of Daley, who also holds a master’s degree in public administration, DiSarro said, “We’ll miss his expertise. He has given the better part of his life as a public servant. I think he did an excellent job for his constituents.”

The local pundit said if a Republican is elected to replace Daley, that person automatically would be part of the majority, and that “may ameliorate the loss of a senior person like Pete Daley. He really knows state government.”

There’s a mix of eight candidates, some of whom are or have been local officeholders, vying for nominations. Democrats are Mark Alterici and Alan Benyak of Charleroi; Randy Barli of Coal Center; Brendan Garay of California; Donn R. Henderson of Fallowfield Township; and Bob Kepics of Monongahela. Republicans are Bud Cook of West Pike Run Township and Melanie Patterson of Washington Township, Fayette County. “A common person should have an opportunity,” DiSarro said, referring to a newcomer as a “citizen-legislator” unattached to special interests. Without turnover, “you don’t have someone from the constituency who may have different ideas.”

He cited paralysis in the legislative branches of both Pennsylvania and the federal government, and encouraged compromise.

“Something has got to give in this governmental system we have,” DiSarro said. “The budget crisis is appalling. Why shouldn’t Shop ‘n Save or Giant Eagle be able to sell a steak and a bottle of Cabernet? Pensions, education, we’ll see what happens here.”

Just as DiSarro was ambivalent about what he called professional legislators and citizen legislators, the chairman of Washington County Board of Commissioners questioned if Daley’s imminent departure would have an impact on county government.

“I don’t know that it hurts us or helps us,” said Larry Maggi, a fellow Democrat. He recalled Daley’s spearheading a threat to have Mon Valley communities secede from Washington, Greene, Westmoreland and Allegheny counties and form Pennsylvania’s 68th county under the Monongahela moniker.

“I did not agree with that,” Maggi said. “It just wasn’t doable.” But he allowed “the legislators’ jobs are to push the envelope on issues.”

The 49th Legislative District now includes 27 communities in Washington County from West Brownsville to Bentleyville and New Eagle, and six in Fayette County, but from 2002 to 2014 it stretched from the Mon Valley to West Alexander, which nudges the West Virginia border.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, which devastated the area, torrential rain compromised the spillway of Dutch Fork Lake, which was drained. Daley helped secure $4 million during the Gov. Ed Rendell administration to rebuild the regional recreation spot popular with anglers, bird watchers, pedestrians and picnickers.

“When you’d go and ask Pete for help, he’d do what he could do,” said Maggi, a Buffalo Township resident. “Restoration of Dutch Fork Lake, being from that area, was an important issue.”

Commission Vice Chairman Diana Irey Vaughan knew of Daley’s involvement in significant projects before she took office in 1996, such as the start-up of California Technology Park, which Daley referred to in an interview as “one of my babies,” and, along with former state Sen. Barry Stout, the Mon-Fayette Expressway.

“Most of the time he has stood with us to make sure the county government position was being taken into consideration when legislation was passed. He always made himself available, and he worked with Mon Valley Progress Council for that area of the county,” she said in an interview in early April.

She also said Daley “has been someone who, when we needed to advocate for positions such as a moratorium on court-ordered reassessments, has taken our calls, and listened to us. It was discussed quite a bit.”

Then-Gov. Tom Corbett vetoed the moratorium because the bill, without naming Washington County, specified a fourth-class county with a unique population range.

If anyone will pick up where Daley left off, Irey Vaughan pointed to state Rep. Brandon Neuman, D-North Strabane, in office since 2011, because his district lies centrally in Washington County.

Daley’s exit leaves state Rep. John Maher, an Upper St. Clair Republican elected in 1997, as the legislator with the longest tenure in Washington County, but his 40th District includes only Peters Township in the county.

Republican state Rep. Jim Christiana, elected in Beaver County in 2008, has represented western Washington County since 2014. Rep. Rick Saccone, R-Elizabeth Township, was elected in 2010. Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Morgan Township, and state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll Township, have held office since 2012.

State Rep. Jason Ortitay, R-South Fayette, was elected two years ago, and state Sen. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Jefferson Hills, has been serving since the results of a special election were certified in November 2015. Like Maher, his district includes only Peters Township in Washington County.

The members of the General Assembly who have more seniority than Daley – all from eastern Pennsylvania – and the year they took office, are Democrats Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, 1974; Thomas R. Caltagirone of Reading, 1977; and Dwight Evans of Philadelphia, 1981.