Tom Brier, Eugene DePasquale square off in race to challenge U.S. Rep. Scott Perry this fall

The contest in the 10th District is being listed by national analysts as one of the hottest Congressional contests in the country in the 2020 cycle.

• Charles Thompson/PennLive
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  Thompson has covered state government for The Patriot since 1999. Prior to that, he had covered various Cumberland County municipalities and school districts. Thompson lives in Carlisle with his wife, Beth, and their two children.

(Harrisburg) — Democratic candidates seeking the party’s nod to try to turn Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District blue this fall opened the home stretch of their primary campaign Tuesday night with two distinct styles, but very similar objectives.

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale touted his experience and achievements in government, and argued that record makes him the best candidate to face-off against Perry – who is unopposed for the Republican Party nomination – in the fall and midstaters’ best bet for effective representation in Washington after that.

Political newcomer Tom Brier flashed his youthful enthusiasm and idealism that he argues, beyond scoring style points, is exactly what the party needs to maximize voter turnout in the way it will be needed to beat incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Perry and help deliver Pennsylvania as an electoral prize to the Democratic presidential nominee in November.

The race in the 10th District is being listed by national analysts as one of the hottest Congressional contests in the country in the 2020 cycle, in part because of the spirited battle political newcomer George Scott gave Perry in 2018.

Politically, both Democrats would mark a dramatic turn from Perry, a Republican who is seeking his fifth term and second in the present-day 10th, and there’s not a great deal of daylight between their core policy positions.

Both Brier and DePasquale, for example, are unabashed supporters of new gun control efforts, taking strong action against climate change and rewriting the federal tax code in a way to create more benefits for middle- and working class households. They are also both strong defenders of a woman’s right to have an abortion.

But for those looking for contrast, it could be found in their respective cases for who’s best positioned to fight for what Democratic voters want in Washington.

DePasquale touted his independence from both parties as a two-term Auditor General who found problems in state government during both Republican and Democratic administrations, and his readiness – as demonstrated during six years in the Pennsylvania House before that – to work across the aisle to achieve his aims.

“But If someone wants someone to just sit in their idealogical corner and only talk to people that you agree with, that’s not going to be me,” DePasquale said. “We’ve got a member of Congress like that. That’s Scott Perry, who literally gets nothing done.”

DePasquale, 48, also related that independent streak to electability.

“My job, if I’m your member of Congress, is to represent this district, not an ideology,” he said. “That’s why I can win this primary, win this general election, and send Scott Perry packing.”

Brier seemed to focus less on a readiness to compromise, and more on raising an army that can win the battle of ideas in Washington D.C.

A 28-year-old attorney from Hershey, he promised a different kind of politics to fix what he sees as a broken democracy under President Donald J. Trump that has led to problems like rising suicide rates, a falling life expectancy and a failure to act on existential threats like climate change.

“What happened to the country that won two world wars and sent man to the moon?” Brier asked at one point, describing the malaise that he sees as infecting American politics. “We can fix this. I believe that,” Brier said. “But we have to vote our values. We have to.”

It was from that platform that Brier reprised his main points of contrast with DePasquale throughout the early days of this primary battle; that he sees the North York political veteran as someone who has been a little too prone at various points during his career to waver from what Brier sees as current Democratic Party principles.

Brier hit DePasquale hardest on the his rival’s vote, as a state legislator in 2011, in favor of the Congressional redistricting plan that would give Pennsylvania one of the most-gerrymandered U.S. House District maps in the nation, and one that would ultimately be thrown out by a landmark Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision.

“I would never deprive you (Democrats) of your right to vote for a decade. I promise that. I promise that I’ll stand on principle at a very moment when my political career relies on it,” Brier said in his closing statement Tuesday, leaving unspoken his implicit question about whether DePasquale would do the same.

DePasquale countered that Brier’s criticism is a little unfair because he has always supported turning redistricting over to a non-partisan citizens commission. DePasquale did say he regretted, while in the state House of Representatives, not pushing harder for legislation he sponsored to make that change when House Democrats were in the majority from 2007 through 2010.

Another point of contrast Tuesday was on gun control.

DePasquale cited his past support for a Perry bill in the Pennsylvania House that extended a person’s right to defend himself or herself with force to their car and property as opposed to just inside their home, as another example of his willingness to extend a hand across the aisle in a legislative setting. The bill passed in 2011 and was signed into law by Gov. Tom Corbett.

When Brier seemed to argue that that left DePasquale coming up a little short on his commitment to gun control – “I’m not going to support an NRA-backed) gun bill,” Brier said at one point – DePasquale defended the vote as one that he still thinks makes sense for homeowners, but that is not inconsistent at all with a desire for universal background checks for all gun sales, or a ban on the sale of assault-style rifles.

DePasquale also snapped back on Brier’s attempt to equate Perry’s expansion of the state’s Castle Doctrine law to so-called stand-your-ground laws like that in Florida that were central to legal arguments in the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen who was killed in 2012 in a struggle with a neighborhood watch captain named George Zimmerman.

“He (Zimmerman) was acting outside of his own property, and under Pennsylvania law he would have been prosecuted for the murderer he is,” DePasquale said.

Brier proceeded to press the contrasts on the issue of campaign financing.

Noting his blanket refusal to accept campaign contributions from corporate political actions committees, Brier argued “You have no credibility if you want to change the systems, if you’re taking money from special interests, and that’s another difference between Eugene and me. He’s taken corporate money his whole career….

“Starting (to work) for reform, especially in the Trump era, begins with getting money out of politics, and that’s honestly why I’m in this race,” Brier said.

DePasquale did not directly address his roster of campaign contributors, but he countered that his whole career has been about “fighting for what I believe is right, whether it’s rooting out waste and corruption; whether it’s taking on governors of either party; whether it’s taking on police departments to make sure that we’re clearing the backlog of untested rape kits.

“This is about the fights you take on,” DePasquale said, adding that his terms in the state House representing York City and two terms as Auditor General provide all the evidence any voter needs to see that “as a member of Congress, I will fight for you every single minute.”

The 10th District covers all of Dauphin County, the eastern half of Cumberland County, and the northern half of York County.

The primary election will be held April 28.

 

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