Competition emerges for Republican state committee seats in Bucks
When Bucks County Republican and Democratic voters come to the polls or fill out a mail-in ballot for the May 19 primary, they will be asked to vote on their party’s state committee members.
And those committee members, who serve four-year terms, will not face the voters again in November since these are party positions, not governmental jobs.
Infighting among the Bucks County Republicans is on full display as competing slates of state committee member candidates will be on the ballot.
But what do state committee members do, and why are they important?
“Our job is to work with the candidates at the state level,” said Bucks GOP Chair Pat Poprik, about the state committee members. “The lieutenant governor, the governor, the treasurer, the attorney general, and the auditor general. Our local committeepeople help support your county commissioners, state reps, everything that’s local.”
“It’s something you work your way up,” she added. “It’s an honor to be a state committee person.”
While the Republican Party has a slate of candidates it endorsed for the eight state committee spots this year, another group, RightForBucks, which claims to be more conservative than many in the party, is backing fifteen candidates for state committee, opposing the party-endorsed candidates.
Andy Meehan, a financial advisor who ran for Congress against incumbent Republican Brian Fitzpatrick in 2020, leads that group and is running on its slate. He believes that, to change the Pennsylvania GOP, more conservative state committee members must be elected.
The RightForBucks platform includes reforming the endorsement process, rewriting and enforcing the bylaws, promoting party unity and fairness, and restoring election integrity.
He called the opponents “establishment people that are going to maintain the status quo.”
Poprik said the endorsed candidates have proven themselves by working on campaigns and at the polls on Election Day.
“One of these [RightForBucks] ladies literally said at the [candidates’] meeting, ‘I don’t have any idea what state committee does, but I thought I’d run for it,’” said Poprik. “Half of them I’d never met. They’ve never done a thing for the party. They just decided to do what they want, to jump in and not be a committeeperson, not work, not be involved – just jump right in.”
And, while the state committeepeople represent all the Republicans in Bucks County, the RightforBucks candidates are mostly from the southern part of the county, Poprik said. The party-endorsed candidates are from all parts of Bucks County, she explained.
Two of the RightForBucks candidates were elected four years ago and then stopped coming to the meetings, Poprik said.
“They didn’t come for the last two-and-a-half years, and unless they gave us a proxy, we were short two votes,” she said, adding it “does not help the party. It’s just to cause trouble.”
But Meehan said one of them had gotten sick shortly after being elected and was unable to attend many meetings and the other one became “disgusted by what he saw and learned about how the state committee was being run, with particular attention to endorsements and the leadership’s willingness to let rogue county chairs kick duly elected patriots out of their committees for not toeing the party line in primaries.”
Meehan’s group also has a pending court case against the party regarding its bylaws.
“There’s a big battle to change leadership and the bylaws,” he said.
There will be a meeting to choose the Bucks County GOP leadership June 27.
“I don’t see any way that she runs herself again and wins in June,” said Meehan about Poprik.
Poprik, a retired investment banker, said she’s undecided about whether to run for the party chairmanship again.
“The bylaws are invalid anyway,” Meehan contended.
Asked whether divisions among the Republicans led to last year’s defeat in the local elections despite the party having about 10,000 more voters than the Democrats, Poprik said no, that what happened was a nationwide phenomenon and a backlash against President Donald Trump.
Of course, Meehan disagreed.
“Our side of the ledger is really, really ticked off,” Meehan said. “And if they think that we’re going to be walking in the midterms, carrying a big Republican flag to get out the vote, if this is what we’re going to get, especially what’s going on locally here, if we don’t get new bylaws and new leadership in Bucks County, you’re going to have the great sucking sound of people leaving the Republican Party.”
The Bucks County Democrats are also electing a slate of candidates for their state committee, and a couple of unendorsed candidates are running, as well.
The Democratic candidates also run countywide, but voters are told to vote for “no more than 13.” The Democratic voters will vote for six men and six women and one of either gender.
Zach Kirk, executive director of the Bucks County Democratic Committee, did not respond to a request for comment.
The party-endorsed candidates listed on the Democratic Party’s website are: Eleanor Breslin, Leann Hart, Marlene Katz, Jessica Malobisky, Nastasha Raisley, Emily Smith, Liz Warren, Ijaz Chaudry, Dr. Umar Farooq, John Lewis, Connor O’Hanlon, Paul Roden, and Steve Wojciechowski.
Also running, according to county records, are: Seema Kazmi, and Kyle Esposito.
On the Republican side, the endorsed candidates are: Michelle Benitez, Candace Cabanas, Ellen Cox, Diane Dowler, Savannah McCloskey, Amalia Ritter, Meghan Schroeder, Stephanie Shortall, Colleen Strunk, Nick Bordner, Dave Breidinger, Skip Goodnoe, Tom Panzer, Don Petrille, Sean Radomski, Bob Sellers, Joe Sroka, and Hank Van Blunk.
The RightForBucks candidates are: Rick Arnott, Ron Arooj, Frank Barnhardt, Sharon Clancy, Liz Diehl, Mike Domanico, Renee Fagan, Barbara Garwood, CC Giscombe, Fran Grous, Keith Hoffman, Kevin Lee, Andy Meehan, Mary Vigna, and Lisa Von Deylen.
Linda Stein is a Philadelphia-area journalist.
