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PAGOP Targets DePasquale After PA10 Trial Balloon

As Auditor General Eugene DePasquale’s second term winds down, the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s interest is ramping up.

DePasquale’s name surfaced in March as a possible challenger to Rep. Scott Perry (R-York). He told PoliticsPA that he hopes to hold another public office after his term as Auditor ends, although he said he had not yet decided which.

The PAGOP is not waiting to find out. The party this week filed a Right To Know Request to learn the costs associated with DePasquale’s recent public events in an effort to characterize his official publicity as a campaign asset. The GOP announcement points to the fact that events from DePasquale’s role as Auditor General appear on his campaign website.

“Eugene DePasquale might think of himself as the state’s fiscal watchdog, but he does not seem to think twice about using taxpayer dollars as a means to boost his personal political profile in advance of his next campaign,” said PAGOP Chairman Val DiGiorgio. “As the days he has left in office decrease, it seems as though the number of press conferences and press events held by the Auditor General increase, with positive coverage of those events then put on Eugene DePasquale’s campaign website and social media channels.”

DePasquale has produced reports – typically announced at press conferences – that criticize a bipartisan array of subjects. Past targets include charter schools, welfare fraud, a backlog of rape kits, various state government agencies, an abortion-alternative service provider and more. News coverage of his efforts has been almost uniformly positive during his two terms in office. In a 2015 release, the PAGOP used one of his reports to criticize Gov. Tom Wolf over school funding.

DePasquale did not immediately respond for comment for this story.

The sudden burst of interest from the PAGOP follows 7 years of benign neglect for the statewide Democratic official. According to a review of PoliticsPA’s archive of press releases, the party did not send a single one targeting DePasquale between his election in 2012 and the day he emerged as a possible PA10 contender in 2019.

Party spokesman Jason Gottesman acknowledged the shift.

“Auditor General DePasquale has made it abundantly and publicly clear that he intends to seek other political office as he becomes term limited here,” he said. “What that campaign is for, he has not said and we don’t know, but as the Republican Party, until he makes that clear and even afterwards, it’s incumbent upon us to be the voice that points out to taxpayers and voters that his record and frankly his history of political ladder climbing to the voters so they can make an informed decision about his future prospects.”

“So I mean, yes, are we pointing things out as he is gearing up for some sort of a campaign, be it for 2020 or afterwards, yes, but he’s also bringing that onto himself by holding himself out there as a candidate in the short term or the long term,” he continued.

DePasquale has long been considered a prospective candidate for higher office and his name is in the mix for Governor and U.S. Senate in 2022, as well as PA10 in 2020. A Pittsburgh native and longtime York resident, he originally made a name for himself as a reform-minded State Representative. He was the first State Rep to publish expenses and receipts for his office. He won the Auditor office by 3 points in 2012 and re-election by 5 points in 2016.

10 Responses

  1. So our Auditor holding a public event to explain his findings is a campaign asset? Then Scott Perry’s next town hall will be one too, for logical consistency. And TheRumps Tweets too. We await PA GOP outrage at the waste of taxpayer resources.

    Weak. Even by the low bar set by GOP hypocrisy.

  2. I fear DePasquale is looking more towards 2022 and either an open Governor seat or running against Pat Toomey. Although Toomey should be done running after 12 years since he’s a self imposed term limits guy, so maybe that will be an open seat too. DePasquale would do the USA and PA a big favor taking neo-con Perry OUT. America will be great again when we get these right wing zealots on the trash heap of history once and for all.

  3. Val never has a positive message to convey. No wonder why he’s been on a losing streak since taking over from Bob Gleason.

    1. “7 years of benign neglect” that’s what you got under the Gleason regime. Not to mention the loss of three statewide row offices, the flipping of the Governor’s office, and being completely asleep—literally and figuratively—at the switch in the 2015 judicial elections that lost GOP control of the Supreme Court and then Congressional seats when those judges went to work. No thanks!

  4. Attacking DePasquale for doing his job is like asking a minister for mileage to and from church to preside over services. The PAGOP lacks creativity, energy and imagination. This attempt to embarrass a popular statewide official is laughable – at best!

    1. “7 years of benign neglect” that’s what you got under the Gleason regime. Not to mention the loss of three statewide row offices, the flipping of the Governor’s office, and being completely asleep—literally and figuratively—at the switch in the 2015 judicial elections that lost GOP control of the Supreme Court and then Congressional seats when those judges went to work. No thanks!

    2. I couldn’t agree more. I’m a conservative independent that usually votes Republican. But I’ve been quite impressed by Depasquale. This criticism by the GOP seems petty at best, and at worst hypocritical. If Depasquale remains a moderate, I’d vote for him for governor.

  5. The Republican Party leadership is getting back in action after working very hard to elect Tom Wolf Governor. Republicans want to bring their leadership skills to the table to help elect DePasquale while really trying to elect an “R”. Dems are lucky the Republican leaders around helping the “R”‘s but in reality they are really helping the “D’s.”

  6. Perry and the Republicans prefer to hide what they’re doing from the public. So it makes a lot of sense that they criticize the opposition for telling the public what’s going on.

  7. Val’s trying to act strong after backing a collection of losers in recent elections. Keep up the good work!

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