Politics makes for strange bedfellows
Politics makes for strange bedfellows.
That certainly was the case when Art Halvorson announced last week he accepted the Democratic nomination to once again run against eight-term U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster in the 9th Congressional District that includes parts of Washington and Greene counties.
But what makes the situation so strange is Halvorson aligns himself with the tea party and said last week he will remain true to his Christian, conservative platform.
Halvorson, a businessman from Bedford County, ran against Shuster in the Republican primary, but narrowly lost the nomination. Still, Halvorson somehow beat Chalk Hill resident Adam Sedlock, an actual Democrat who mounted an organized write-in campaign on that side of the ballot.
“The Democrats gave me another shot,” Halvorson said.
It was a stunning blow to Democrats in the 9th Congressional District as they tried to explain how someone on the opposite side of the political spectrum could be running on their ticket.
“As a Democrat, I would never vote for him,” said Greene County Commissioner Dave Coder, who is a member of that county’s Democratic Party Committee.
The hard truth, however, is if Democrats wanted their candidate on the ballot in the fall, then they should have run a better write-in campaign compared to a tea partier who, by all accounts, never made any effort to pursue Democratic write-in votes.
“We cannot accept, nor permit, an avowed member of the GOP/tea party, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, to be portrayed to our electorate as a Democrat,” Sedlock said last week.
Halvorson isn’t a wolf in sheep’s clothing, however, because he openly admitted he is not a Democrat and won’t portray himself to voters that way. Sedlock, on the other hand, said he now plans to mount another write-in campaign in the general election, although his chance of winning is non-existent if the April primary is any indication.
But these strange circumstances actually illustrate a larger, underlying problem with the electoral system and how congressional districts are drawn. Washington County Democratic Committee Chairman Ronald Sicchitano alluded to it when he said the gerrymandering of congressional districts in Pennsylvania following the 2010 census made many races in the state uncompetitive.
That was seen with the lack of interest by the Democratic Party to field a credible candidate in the 9th Congressional District, which stretches from Carmichaels to Gettysburg and as far north to Punxsutawney. No Democrat ever has a chance of winning the rural district.
The problem extends beyond that district.
The political gerrymandering has led to a 13-to-5 Republican advantage in Pennsylvania’s 18 congressional districts, this despite Democrats holding an overwhelming voter registration lead across the state and Pennsylvania’s support for Democratic presidential candidates since 1992.
The districts across the state have been sliced and diced to such an extent voters no longer have a real choice who represents them.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, whose 18th Congressional District includes most of Washington and Greene counties, along with the South Hills of Pittsburgh, had no primary or general election challengers this year because he represents an area rich with GOP support. Meanwhile, the district for Congressman Mike Doyle, a Democrat who represents Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, has been filled with Democrats, insulating him from serious challenges over the past two decades.
Similar problems also exist with Pennsylvania’s state House and Senate districts. The original maps drawn in 2011 were thrown out by the state Supreme Court over gerrymandering and ordered to be redrawn.
Until the configuration of these political districts are taken out of the hands of politicians and placed under the jurisdiction of nonpartisan committees, we’ll continue to see uncompetitive races, or ones that have no challengers at all.
Halvorson’s successful write-in bid to run as a Democrat should be a wake-up call to all voters that the political system is not working the way it was intended, and that they’re being cheated from having a real choice in who represents them in Congress.