Pa. elects Democrats as treasurer and auditor

HARRISBURG - A pair of Democrats won the top elected fiscal-watchdog posts in Pennsylvania government Tuesday.

Rob McCord was reelected to a second four-year term as state treasurer, and legislator Eugene DePasquale won a three-way race for auditor general.

McCord, 53, defeated Diana Irey Vaughan, 50, a Washington County commissioner since 1995, in her first statewide campaign.

McCord is a former venture capitalist from Bryn Mawr. He was elected in 2008 in his first political run.

Though he has maintained a low profile, McCord made headlines in 2010 when he and Auditor General Jack Wagner refused to approve a $1 billion borrowing package advocated by Gov. Ed Rendell. All three are Democrats. Rendell backed down and accepted $650 million.

McCord also is a formidable campaign fund-raiser who reported $2 million on hand through mid-September, contrasted with Vaughan's $22,000. McCord aired a couple of statewide television ads, while Vaughan relied on radio ads and billboards.

Vaughan criticized McCord for not doing enough in the $154,334-a-year post to avert a looming state pension crisis and to reduce state debt.

The race for auditor general was between two members of the state House: DePasquale, a Democrat from York County, and Rep. John Maher, a Republican from Allegheny County. Both earned reputations in the Statehouse for being independent-minded; both also annoyed government reform groups by simultaneously seeking reelection to their House seats.

DePasquale, 41, a lawyer who grew up in Pittsburgh, has said he decided to run for auditor general after Gov. Corbett, a Republican, took office in 2011 and the GOP captured both chambers in the legislature.

The auditor general post pays $152,443. DePasquale has promised that if elected, he would order a review of how the state monitors pollution to ensure that natural-gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale has not tainted drinking water.

He said he would also make it a priority to review job-creation programs to ensure that money is being invested effectively.

DePasquale likes to tout his personal track record of keeping spending at a minimum, often saying he was the first legislator to post his expenses online and that he had the lowest expenses among legislators. During one of the debates in the auditor general's race, he noted that he bought his district office furniture at a yard sale.

Maher, 53, of Allegheny County, founded a Pittsburgh public accounting firm before he entered the legislature in 1997. The third candidate in the race was Libertarian Party candidate Betsy Summers, a Wilkes-Barre businesswoman.