Competition rises in Chesco House races

Chester County, once the solid red state of the Philadelphia suburbs, might take on more of a blue tint if Democrats win three hotly contested races for the state House of Representatives.

One of the seats is held by freshman Democrat Barbara McIlvaine Smith. The two others are being vacated by Republicans, and political observers say those seats could go Democratic if presidential candidate Barack Obama's coattails reach deep into down-ticket races.

"The long and short of it is that the Democrats believe they can make big inroads in that county," said G. Terry Madonna, political pollster and analyst at Franklin and Marshall College. "It looks like Obama is going to win the suburbs convincingly, and that's going to help."

Joseph E. "Skip" Brion, chairman of the Chester County Republican Committee, said he was confident that his candidates would pull through.

"Every one will be a hard-fought race and contest, but we are going to win them," he said. "I don't think the presidential race will be an influence. Chester County voters are very independent."

The latest county figures show 150,097 registered Republicans, a loss of more than 20,000 since 2004; 124,622 registered Democrats, an increase of nearly 26,000; and 50,927 voters who registered independent or with minor parties.

With Republican Reps. Carole Rubley of the 157th District and Art Hershey of the 13th District retiring, vigorous campaigns are being waged to replace them.

In the 157th, Democrat Paul Drucker, 63, and Republican Guy Ciarrocchi, 44, have flooded mailboxes and the airwaves with ads.

Running for Hershey's seat are Democrat Tom Houghton, 39; Republican John A. Lawrence, 30; and independent Ronald Hershey, 50, a distant cousin of Art Hershey's.

In a rematch, Republican Shannon Royer, 41, is challenging McIlvaine Smith, 58. Smith defeated Royer by 20 votes in the 156th District in 2006 after a long and contentious recount. She is the only Democratic state representative from Chester County; a Democrat also holds one of the county's Senate seats.

All the candidates say voters are most concerned about the economy and property taxes, and all pledged to work on changing the way Harrisburg does business.

Drucker and Ciarrocchi say they favor a fairer tax system that would move away from a one-size-fits-all approach and give school districts more options for raising money.

The 157th includes Phoenixville, Tredyffrin and Schuylkill in Chester County and parts of Lower Providence and West Norriton in Montgomery County. Both candidates have served as a Tredyffrin supervisor, splitting the same term.

Ciarrocchi was elected first, but after serving as 2004 state campaign chairman for President Bush, he was appointed regional director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. For eight years, he served as spokesman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and most recently was chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.).

Drucker, a lawyer specializing in employment law, won a special election to replace Ciarrocchi in Tredyffrin, but lost the seat two years later by 20 votes.

In a measure of how times are changing, Fraternal Order of Police lodges in Chester and Montgomery Counties have endorsed Drucker; the FOP usually backs Republicans in the suburbs.

Ciarrocchi, trying to shake off his ties to Bush, said he believed that the "vast majority" of voters in the district would split their tickets in his favor.

In the southwestern corner of Chester County, around Oxford, 13th District voters are so worried about rising property taxes that Lawrence, a banker, said he would vote to eliminate them and increase the income or sales tax to make up the difference.

Houghton, a lawyer and supervisors chairman in London Grove, said the answer was to increase the state's education funding to share the burden equally with school districts.

He said raising the state income tax 1 percentage point would generate only $3 billion, while eliminating property taxes would leave an $11 billion gap.

Hershey, a small-business owner and vice chairman of the Oxford Borough Council, said the primarily rural district needed more industry to ease the tax burden on homeowners.

In the West Chester area, Royer, an outreach worker for the state House Republican caucus, said he would freeze property taxes for senior citizens and direct gaming revenue from the state to school districts to make up the difference.

McIlvaine Smith said that she had voted for that bill when Royer's mentor, Rep. John Perzel (R., Phila.), introduced it, but that it had not gotten out of the Senate.

She also said the current state budget included the largest increase in state funding for education in 20 years, fulfilling a campaign promise she made two years ago.

On the issue of government reform, McIlvaine Smith said she drives her own car without billing the state, and posts her office expenses online. She has crossed party lines on key votes.

"I've done the job I said I would do," she said.