The 13th state Senatorial District is kind of like a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich with the rural townships the PB and Lancaster city the jelly (on a personal note, all you grape jelly fans can go home; Bird’s-Eye View only endorses the use of strawberry jam). The condiments when slathered between two slices of bread are delicious, but they are two very separate entities made in very different ways.
Here’s where I’m going with this: Senator-elect Lloyd Smucker (no relation to the Smucker jelly company, by the way) is going to have to figure out during the next four years how to make the peanut butter and the jelly to keep this combo satisfied, and that’s no easy task. Spend a Saturday night in the Rawlinsville Tavern and then a Saturday night in the Dispensing Co., and you’re going to have vastly different experiences.
Vast swaths of the 13th District are as rural and Republican as they get in this state, populated with people who have been Lancasterians for generations, tilling the land, wanting as little interference from government as possible. Keep your Wal-Marts and your fancy ideas about growth development in your big cities. They’re patriotic, pastoral, conservative, feeling satisfactorially isolated. Many eye millions of dollars flowing into economic development projects which benefit the city (and not, say, Martic Township) with great suspicion bordering on anger.
Then there’s Lancaster city, hot bed of progressive Democratic politics. Art galleries are plentiful, so is anti-Iraq War sentiment and a fairly vibrant gay community. They have no problem asking for state assistance to help their economy whether it’s the hotel/convention center or the Pennsylvania Academy of Music or Franklin & Marshall College. They like nightlife (is there enough of it in Lancaster city?), and the population is diverse, a blend of caucasian, Hispanic, black, Asian and so on. It has wealthy residents. It has its poverty.
Salty and sweet. That’s the 13th District. Point is, Smucker’s task for the next four years is to keep both happy, but it’s a balance not easily created. Here’s why: Let’s say City Council hops on board a multi-million dollar project like a new entertainment complex on Lancaster Square. When completed, the complex will generate massive amounts of tax revenue and jobs. A prominent Democrat on City Council becomes the vocal leader, gets her picture in the paper each day, is lauded by the media and the public for the work she does to turn around a delapidated city block. But the price tag is $45 million, and in order for this to happen, they need economic development grants or loans from the state. So this prominent Democrat comes looking to Smucker, who’s well aware in four years you can’t safely win the 13th District without measurably strong support in the city. Democrats continue to register more and more city voters as well as in the ‘burbs like Lampeter.
Should Smucker get the money? Maybe, but what if that royally upsets constituents in the south who have seen millions of dollars flow into the city during retiring state Sen. Gib Armstrong’s tenure? What if they say enough is enough? What if someone rises up and challenges Smucker in the GOP primary, someone who tries to paint Smucker as a RINO (Republican In Name Only)? Meanwhile the prominent City Council Democrat has decided she’s going cash in the political capital she’s earned with her support of the entertainment complex and run against Smucker.
See. Being state Senator in the 13th District is no easy job.
In talking with Smucker, he seems like a man who understands how important it is to keep the city vibrant. But doing so has to come with a sense of caution for any Republican in that seat.
