Challenger hopes to seize on Metcalfe’s behavior
Pa. 12th House District
Post-Gazette Washington Bureau
Since joining the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1999, Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Cranberry, has made plenty of headlines for hosting and defending white nationalists, suggesting the Parkland High School shooting was performed by actors and calling an openly gay Democratic colleague a “lying homosexual” in a social media tirade against members of a committee he chaired.
Mr. Metcalfe’s controversial style, which infuriates Democrats, has also turned off some Republicans — particularly in his home of Cranberry, where GOP township supervisors have clashed with the 11-term lawmaker.
Scott Timko, a U.S. Air Force veteran and small-business owner from Cranberry, hopes to seize on the local friction in his run in the June 2 Republican primary for Pennsylvania’s 12th state House district. The top hatshaped district that covers much of southern Butler County includes Cranberry, Clinton,
Forward, Middlesex and Penn.
In an interview this week, Mr. Timko said he believes the burden of governing, such as traffic management in Cranberry, has unfairly fallen to local officials like the township supervisors. He sharply criticized Mr. Metcalfe’s record as being empty of accomplishments and full of negative headlines.
“What you see are examples of inexcusable, boorish, offensive behavior and a legendary intolerance for a whole lot of people — whether it be lifestyle choices or people who just disagree with him,” Mr. Timko said. “The anger and the vitriol he spews towards others is just simply unproductive.”
“I’m talking about a representative who simply can’t be civilized in the statehouse,” Mr. Timko added. “I just don’t know how you work with other people if nobody wants to work with you and they’re only in a room with
you because they have no choice.”
Mr. Metcalfe, in an interview, said Mr. Timko was “just parroting the same criticisms that have been levied against me, election cycle after election cycle.” He said he enjoys wide support from constituents because of his job performance in Harrisburg, including his work on a pension reform bill that was signed by Gov. Tom Wolf in 2017.
Mr. Metcalfe said he has pushed for “limited, more efficient government, less taxation, local control of education and protecting the traditional family values that so many of my constituents hold dear as I do.”
“I stand up for taxpayers, and I fight back against the liberals both in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party that want to take more money out of my constituents’ pockets,” he said.
Recently, Mr. Metcalfe has defended people who question the established science of vaccinations, introducing a bill on April 30 that would prohibit doctors and insurers from denying care to patients who decline to be vaccinated.
Mr. Timko seized on that measure. “We have a representative who, if there was a solution to the [COVID-19] problem in the form of a vaccine, wouldn’t support that.”
Mr. Timko acknowledged his uphill battle, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has upended traditional campaigning. Last year, Mr. Timko initially filed to run against Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Mt. Lebanon, in Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District. In February, he decided instead to run for the General Assembly.
Mr. Timko launched a series of 12 podcasts called “12 minutes with Timko” to discuss his policy stances leading up to the primary. “You can learn more about me in 12 minutes than you’ve found out about Daryl Metcalfe in the last 20 years,” he said.
In 2018, Mr. Metcalfe prevailed in the closest general election in more than a decade — albeit still winning by more than 16 percentage points — after being challenged by Democrat Dan Smith. Mr. Smith is running on the Democratic ticket again this fall.