GOP's pick for 196th

Seth Grove is the chief of staff for state Rep. Keith Gillespie, R-Hellam Township, and had been involved in various Republican camapigns for the past 10 years. This despite the fact that he's only 28.

Like York County Republican Chairman Peck Foster told me and Brock afterward, Seth's got an interesting combination of youth and experience. The former can be an asset, because it takes years for lawmakers in Harrisburg to get to a level of seniority where they're in charge of committees -- at which point they can wield some serious influence.

A lot of people like complaining about the "career politicians" in Harrisburg, which I find kind of naive.

Yes, people are right to distrust a culture of complacency, where elected officials are relaxed in their assurance that they will be re-elected every term no matter what they do. But I'm equally distrustful of the knee-jerk distrust based on the assumption that any government official -- much less an experienced one -- is inherently suspect. I consider blind trust and blind distrust to be equally worthless philosophies.

Anyway, Seth was up against five other wanna-be Republican state representatives. It was up to Republican committee members to select them, because the state primary already took place in April.

At the beginning of July, incumbent state Rep. Bev Mackereth, R-Spring Grove, announced that she isn't running for re-election in November because she's accepting a job as York County's director of human resources.

When I interviewed Grove after Wednesday night's vote, he impressed me with his grasp on some of the issues. Pretty much everybody who runs for state office in this region has to mention ballooning property taxes, and pledge to do something about them. Many propose raising the state sales or income taxes to offset them.

But Seth raised an interesting point that I hadn't heard before.

He pointed out that in the House of Representatives, about 80 members come from growing areas such as York County, where property taxes are the biggest burden. The remaining 123 are from districts where that's not a problem.

Seth pointed out that the majority of lawmakers are unlikely to approve a plan that will raise sales or income taxes for their constituents in order to solve a problem that doesn't exist in their districts. So lawmakers who want property tax reform may have to seek some other solution.

It's certainly a thorny issue, but Seth shows admirable pragmatism in raising it.

He said he doesn't intend to take it easy where campaigning is concerned, which is also pragmatic of him.

County Democrats didn't have a candidate to run in that district for the April primary, so no Democrat's name will be on the ballot. Democratic school board member Rob McIlvaine has since announced that he will run as a write-in candidate.

Write-in candidates typically face an uphill struggle, to say nothing of Democrats in a predominantly Republican district such as the 196th. But Rob is part of the slate of school board candidates who triumphed over the "intelligent design" backers during Dover's legal scrap about the teaching of evolution. As such, he's well-known locally and internationally.

And as Seth pointed out Wednesday night, the county's new, computerized voting machines make it easier to submit a write-in ballot.

The next few months should be busy ones in the 196th.