DePasquale promises to problem solve and put aside DC ‘trappings’ in 10th Congressional bid

• Sam Dunklau
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  Sam Dunklau was WITF’s Capitol Bureau Chief from 2020 – 2023.

(Harrisburg) — The race for Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District is expected to be one of the closest in the nation.

Republican incumbent Scott Perry and Democratic challenger Eugene DePasquale have spent nearly a million dollars apiece so far in their battle for a spot on the Keystone State’s delegation.

In his own bid, Democrat DePasquale is portraying himself as a fighter who’s overcome challenges and held powerful people accountable in his roles as an attorney, state legislator, and most recently, as the Pennsylvania’s auditor general. He’s promised to not get caught up in what he describes as the “trappings” of Washington, D.C. political culture and work with colleagues across the aisle if elected to Congress.

Interview highlights

Tell us about yourself, as much as you want to share.

I’m the Pennsylvania Auditor General. I’m a dad. I’m a fitness nut, and I’m a sports fan and a Star Wars fan, and I’m sort of all of that wrapped up.

As the auditor general, I believe in transparency, holding people accountable. And that extends not just in my public life, but also in my fitness stuff. I mean, I have a trainer that holds me accountable and as a coach, I coach assistant high school football and [am a] baseball coach and American Legion baseball coach, I hold my players accountable. Fairly, but hold them accountable. And same thing as a dad and even as a friend.

 

And so, that’s a streak that has run through me from the time I was very young. And so it really was a perfect fit for me being the state fiscal watchdog, and I think would be a good fit in Washington, D.C. as someone that wants to hold powerful people accountable and also work in pragmatic ways to get things done.

Because in my life, I just [say], “Hey, what’s the best way to get this done?” [I’m] not an ideologue on any side. You know, certainly I’m a Democrat and proud of that, but what’s the best way to get stuff done? That’s a streak that’s run through my whole life.

Was politics a dream of yours when you were growing up?

No, I wanted to play in the major leagues and I wanted to be a Jedi. I’m still trying to be a Jedi. And I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek and somewhat seriously, but you know, they had other guys in the majors that throw a little harder than 84 miles an hour.

I ended up playing for one of the best Division Three baseball teams in the country. I actually beat some Division One schools. But when you actually start competing with people at that level, you start to realize … I remember when I tried out with the Kansas City Royals, and I remember thinking, ‘I should be sticking out a little more here.’ You know? But that was what I thought about when I was a kid: trying to be Luke Skywalker and trying to be a Major League Baseball player.

But you ended up going into politics, starting at the local level and are now serving as a state executive officer. What have you learned along the way?

Well, I guess you would say a lot. First of all, from the people that we serve: they’re a lot less consumed with the day-to-day ‘gotcha’ of politics that can sometimes grip people that are in elected office, and no offense, in the media. They want us focused on making our communities better, making our state and our country better, and the ‘got you,’ ‘who’s up, who’s down’ type of stuff is just silly to most people. I’ve certainly learned that.

I’ve learned that if you do the best you can, and when you screw up, admit it. Sometimes you hear, ‘Oh, you can’t admit weakness.’ There’s a certain official that sort of believes that’s wrong to do. I’ve found that, when you say, ‘Yeah, I screwed up, and I’m going to try to do better,’ the vast majority of the public, even people that would never vote for you, go ‘Yeah, he said he’s sorry.’ So when you’re honest about it, even when you go back and say, ‘Yeah, I got to do better,’ most people get that.

I’m a much better manager now, of staff, than I was in the beginning. It’s sort of like being a great coach. You got to figure out how to utilize people’s best talents. I’m much better at delegating. In the beginning, I wanted to do all of this myself. My mom sort of said, when I was in Little League, “Eugene, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the pitcher. But you also want to be the shortstop and the outfielder at the exact same time, and that’s just not going to work. If you want to pitch, you gotta trust that the person that’s playing shortstop while you’re pitching is going to play the position.”

So I’ve gotten much better at that, certainly, as a candidate as an elected official, and I think in everyday life as well.

Why Congress, and why now?

Well, I mean, the biggest reason is because I really debated other options, right? I mean, was I going to run for potentially governor or U.S. Senate a couple years, or the House now, or go do something else in life?

And I thought, with my skills, my background, my significant disagreements with Congressman Perry and his style of leadership and the challenges that the country was going to be facing in the next term in Congress, that I thought my style of leadership could serve this district and the country at a critical juncture.

What would you do to work with the other side of the aisle?

I said publicly and to others: I would join the Problem Solvers Caucus, which is a group equal number of Republicans and Democrats from the ideological spectrum of both parties, and sit down with them, and one of the things I would push them on is, “Let’s find some confidence-building measures that we can work on.”

And I know that just sitting around going, ‘Oh, we’re all going to sing Kumbaya to fix healthcare,’ that’s … but for example, the one thing I’ll throw on…the table is: we’ve got a nationwide problem on untested rape kits.

Let’s work together to get rid of the backlog of untested rape kits across the country, bring some of these creeps that have harmed mostly women, but certainly some men and certainly some in the LGBTQ community. Let’s bring some of these creeps to justice and let’s do it together.

Let’s show people that we can work together on something that is not an ideological problem, but is a problem in the United States. That’s one way. And then I think sometimes confidence breeds confidence. We worked together. We got this done, and let’s try to find some other areas where we can get something similar done.

That would be my approach.

Do you see the White House as a strategy in that or as an impediment?

It’s a very nice, big building that I’ve actually only been in once on the tour. Maybe twice, yeah, twice on a tour.

Look, if I’m a member of Congress…I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I’m sure every member of Congress gets frustrated with the White House and every White House gets frustrated with Congress. You know what? That’s fine. That’s the way our system should be.

If I’m a member of Congress, when I’m a member of Congress, my job is to represent this district, and to do the best I can for the people of this district and our nation. And that may mean I’ll be in agreement with the president. That may mean I’m in disagreement with the president. That is part of the job.

What do you feel the people of this district need from their congressman?

Well, right now, we need someone that can bring people together, not someone who’s similar to what our member of Congress did about a week ago and say that George Floyd and other people of color who’ve died at the hands of police were sensationalized, which was crazy.

We don’t need a member of Congress who goes out of his way to say systemic racism doesn’t exist, and who goes out of his way to say, generally speaking, students can’t pass on COVID to their teachers because of some unnamed German study. I mean, so that’s, we’ll just start that for starters.

Two, I want to make sure that small businesses and individuals in this district, especially during COVID, get the help they need so they can stay in their home, stay in their apartments, and be able to stay alive while we try to find a vaccine so we can get back to some semblance of normal. That would be something that this district desperately needs right now and isn’t getting and certainly would get if I’m honored to be their member of Congress.

Since the question was posed to Congressman Perry, I’ll pose it to you: Does systemic racism exist?

Yes it does. All you have to do is look at our criminal justice system. Look, I visited my dad in prison when he was incarcerated. I’ve seen what the criminal justice system looks like, and the incarceration rates based on population. Just look at marijuana enforcement, I mean it’s clear.

Now when you say that, most people aren’t racist, obviously. But there are systemic racism problems in the United States. Look at our criminal justice system and the investment in our public schools. Look at, just look at the, what we spend per child in some of our urban schools versus some of our non-urban schools, and you see, we have a problem here.

That doesn’t mean we haven’t made tremendous progress as a country. We certainly have. But the greatness of America is we can do even better. And as a member of Congress, I’m going to fight to make sure we do do better.

We’ve identified a fair amount of problems. As a single Congressman, is that something you think you can change [or] that you can address?

On Day One, all of these problems won’t go away.

[But] this is sort of how I live my life in a lot of ways: if you go into a problem with the idea of, ‘What am I going to do if this thing doesn’t work?’ you’ve already lost.

What can I do today to make this better? Then you do that … and then if you keep taking it in those chunks, you’ll make progress in those two years.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.