Schools as ‘special interests’
Mr. Metcalfe started his political career advocating private education, so it’s not surprising that he has routinely criticized school boards for what he considers to be excessive spending. That has led to public spats and resentment.
Former Seneca Valley President Dean Berkebile, a Republican, said Mr. Metcalfe disdained school directors and criticized school spending while refusing to provide suggestions or attend meetings.
The battle over school finances poured out into the open in 2004, when two districts sparred with Mr. Metcalfe over his comments that school directors were “appropriating money for self-interest or special interests.” Mr. Berkebile responded by sending a 33page memo outlining the district’s per-student spending, which was near the bottom in comparison to other districts. He invited Mr. Metcalfe to a meeting with the board, but the representative called that invitation “political grandstanding.”
“It suggests that he shouldn’t be a legislator,” Mr. Berkebile said. “It suggests
Mr. Metcalfe is described by local leaders as a professional campaigner, one who will go door to door himself gathering petition signatures. Mr. Skorupan called him a “mean competitor” whose campaign tactics and big war chest have discouraged others from running against him.”
“You’d have to have awful thick skin to run against him,” Mr. Pinkerton said.
Four years ago, an alliance of Mr. Metcalfe’s skeptics in Cranberry, and a politically potent name in nearby AdamsTownship, nearly toppled the arch-conservative legislator. Gordon Marburger, a Mars Area School Board member whose wife Diane was and is the county treasurer, filed to run in the Republicanprimary.”
It seemed like he just wasn’t representing the area well,” said Mr. Marburger recently. “He kept saying he’ll never vote for taxes,” he added, but wasn’t “coming up with measures to solve things without raising taxes.”
Mr. Mazzoni, the Republican supervisor, ran a sophisticated campaign. But Mr. Marburger was tossed off the ballot because of a mistake in his campaign’s paperwork. He launched a write-in bid that fell just 570 votes, or 10 percentage points, short.
Mr. Marburger said Mr. Metcalfe then threatened to support a challenger for county treasurer, but the threat never materialized. He tried another run against Mr. Metcalfe in 2016, but lost by 20 percentage points.
Local officials said the district’s low voter turnout and Republican registration edge have helped Mr. Metcalfe to maintain power. In 2014, only a quarter of the Republican electorate in the district voted in the primary, and Mr. Metcalfe won the nomination with just 3,276 votes. In the general, the district’s 2-to-1 Republican registration advantage helped him to get 61 percent of the vote against Democrat Lisa Zucco.
Democratic nominee Daniel Smith Jr. will face similar prospects this November, but hopes that his focus on localized issues like road congestion and hunting on Sundays will provide a stark contrast to the incumbent. Mr. Smith calls himself an “aggravated constituent” who is tired of Mr. Metcalfe alienating his constituents.
“How much he has provided a disservice to the district as a whole, it’s disgusting,” Mr. Smith said of his representative and opponent. “I was fed up with it. This particular district, they just want representation. That’s all it is. They’re sick of partisanship.”
Mr. Smith said the reason his candidacy is getting national attention is not that he is a homosexual, as Mr. Metcalfe wrote in a fundraising letter, but because Mr. Metcalfe has embarrassed the district on a national scale.