Pennsylvania: Seventeenth District

Rep. Tim Holden (D)

Tim Holden (D) Elected 1992, 8th term up
Born:	03-05-1957, Pottsville
Home:	St. Clair
Education:	U. of Richmond, 1976-78, Bloomsburg St. U., B.A. 1980
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Gwen)
Elected  Office:	Schuylkill Cnty. Sheriff, 1985–92.
Professional Career:	Real estate agent; Insurance broker, Holden Insurance Agency, 1980–85; Probation Officer, 1980-85.
DC Office	2417 RHOB, 20515 202-225-5546 Fax: 202-226-0996 Website: www.holden.house.gov
State Offices	Harrisburg:717-234-5904; Lebanon:717-270-1395; Pottsville:570-622-4212; Temple:610-921-3502;
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Through the center of Pennsylvania flows the Susquehanna, the longest river in the East if you include the Chesapeake Bay, which is actually the flooded lower Susquehanna Valley. Starting in Cooperstown, New York, emptying into the Chesapeake next to the antique town of Havre de Grace, Maryland, the Susquehanna is the one river strong enough to break through the Appalachian chains of central Pennsylvania. But few songs are written to celebrate the Susquehanna—it has not given a name to a fever (Potomac), a school of painting (Hudson) or economics (Charles), or to a state (Delaware, Connecticut, Ohio, Mississippi, Alabama, Illinois, Missouri, Colorado, Tennessee)—and its dams are silting up and threaten environmental havoc on the tenuously recovering Chesapeake, unless the unwieldy grouping of states through which the Susquehanna runs can find a solution; already, millions of fish and fish eggs are killed each year by power plants. In April 2005, American Rivers—a national conservation group—rated the Susquehanna the nation’s “most endangered river,” due mostly to sewer system discharge.

The 17th Congressional District of Pennsylvania includes two distinct areas: the agricultural lands adjoining the Susquehanna River, and the industrial areas of Schuylkill and Berks Counties. The first is centered on the state capital of Harrisburg; it includes Dauphin County, part of Perry County just across the river and Lebanon County to the east. Harrisburg features a string of mansions-turned-lobbying headquarters gracefully lining the banks of the Susquehanna and boasts Pennsylvania’s marvelously restored Capitol building—its dome is modeled after St. Peter’s in Rome, its stairway on the Paris Opera. Nearby is Hershey, the town erected by chocolate magnate Milton S. Hershey as a carefully planned, almost utopian village for his factory workers and their families. The surrounding area, fed by a steady flow of tourists to Hersheypark, with 10 roller coasters, has attracted top-flight hospitals and cultivated a prosperous air; the U.S. House of Representatives held “civility retreats” here during the 1990s (they lapsed due to insufficient interest). Directly south is Middletown, whose leafy, gridded streets and handsome homes give no hint that it is the location of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, site in 1979 of the worst nuclear accident in American history.

The eastern half of the district has a grittier heritage. In Berks and Schuylkill Counties the farmers were rough-hewn and more violence-prone, and the towns existed solely to mine rich veins of anthracite coal, the primary energy source of late 19th and early 20th century America; although the big companies abandoned the mines long ago, some local entrepreneurs still go deep underground to blast their way into the anthracite. These mountain towns were less orderly, filled with tough-talking miners and factory workers who stayed menacingly in the background unless a character stumbled into the wrong roadhouse at night or the wrong diner at dawn—the Pennsylvania that John O’Hara grew up in and wrote about in the 1930s and 1940s. Pottsville, nestled amid mountains and the home of Yuengling lager (known locally as “Vitamin Y”), produced the Maroons, the team that may have won the 1925 National Football League championship (the league disputed the claim, to Pottsville’s eternal chagrin) and whose ties to coal country are emblematic of the game’s hardscrabble roots. Pottsville and its neighbors have never rebounded from the switch from anthracite coal to oil and natural gas for home heating: With a disproportionately aging population, Schuylkill County had 228,000 people in 1940 and 147,000 in 2006.

Politically, the 17th leans Republican. Harrisburg has been a Republican town from the days when the party seemed to conquer all in Pennsylvania; Republicans held the governorship for all but eight years from 1860 to 1934 and filled the ornate halls of the Capitol with Republican patronage hacks. Lebanon County is even more solidly Republican. Schuylkill County, in contrast, has a Democratic heritage from its mining days, though its Democrats tend to take conservative stands on cultural issues like abortion and guns. Berks County is somewhat more Republican. Overall, the district voted 56% for George W. Bush in 2000 and 58% in 2004.

The congressman from the 17th District is Tim Holden, a Democrat first elected from the old 6th District in 1992 and the winner of a 2002 battle between incumbents thrown together by redistricting. Holden comes from a political family from the coal mining hamlet of St. Clair; his great-grandfather was a coal miner who founded the forerunner to the United Mine Workers, and his father served four terms as Schuylkill County commissioner. Holden gained fame as a local football player, although tuberculosis cut short his college career. In 1985, at age 28, after selling insurance and real estate in the family business for five years, he was elected Schuylkill County sheriff. Holden’s opponent in the 1992 race for an open seat was the better-financed John Jones III, a lawyer, but Holden's regular guy appeal played well in culturally conservative but economically polarized Schuylkill County; he won 52%-48%.

Holden has a moderate voting record, though a bit more conservative on cultural issues. He is one of the centrist Blue Dog Democrats and has consistently been near the center of the House. “The problems our country is facing need to be solved in a bipartisan manner,” he says. “There’s about 70 liberals and 70 ultraconservatives still in the House. They need to be left behind.” He opposes abortion and opposed the FDA’s approval of the RU-486 drug. But in January 2007, he supported embryonic stem cell research, after earlier voting against it. On the Agriculture Committee, where he is the number-two Democrat and chairman of the Conservation, Credit, Energy and Research Subcommittee, Holden looks after dairy programs. He also has gained influence as the senior Pennsylvanian on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. On the 2005 highway bill, he took credit for $10 million in local projects, far less than claimed by more influential or vulnerable members. Most of all, he has worked hard at home, talking issues and solving constituents’ problems. As the Pottsville Republican & Evening Herald wrote, “It would be hard to imagine a legislator more precisely in tune with his county on virtually any and every issue that has come before Congress.” He appears to relish his low profile and avoids the usual Capitol Hill partisanship.

Holden’s constituent-oriented approach proved vital after redistricting in 2002. The new 17th District combined Holden’s Schuylkill County base with the Harrisburg base of Republican incumbent George Gekas; the Republican edge in the district favored Gekas, but each was well-funded by additional expenditures by their party and interest groups. Holden spent many hours knocking on doors in Dauphin and Lebanon County emphasizing his independence, while Gekas was less organized and slower to introduce himself to voters in Schuylkill County. Holden won 51%-49%. In Dauphin County, which had the largest turnout, Gekas won 56%-44%; in Lebanon, he won 61%-39%. But Holden was far stronger in his base, winning Schuylkill 72%-28%.

Since then, well-known Republican officials have declined to run. In 2004, Republicans nominated Scott Paterno, a lawyer and the son of longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno; Holden won 59%-39%, with 74% in Schuylkill County and an impressive 58% in Dauphin County. In 2006, Republicans threw in the towel. Nominee Matthew Wertz raised little money and officially withdrew in September, though his name remained on the ballot. Wertz got 35%, which can be viewed as the Republican base.

Committees

• Agriculture (Vice Chmn. of 25 D)
  Conservation, Credit, Energy & Research (Chmn.); Livestock, Dairy & Poultry.
• Transportation & Infrastructure (14th of 41 D)
  Highways & Transit; Aviation.

Presidential Vote

District Demographics (More Info)

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: R + 7
• Area size: 2,378 square miles
• Urban Population: 68.6%
• Rural Population: 31.4%
• Population 2000: 646,420
• Population 2005 (est): 650,157
• Median Income: $40,473
• Poverty Status: 8.4%
• Military Veterans: 14.8%
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 87.3% White; 7.3% Black; 1.1% Asian; 0.1% Native Am.; 0.0% Hawaiian; 0.9% Two+ races; 0.1% Other; 3.2% Hispanic Origin;
• Ancestry: 26.0% German%; 8.7% Irish%; 5.1% Italian%;
• Occupation: Blue collar 30.2%; White collar 55.1%; Gray collar 14.8%;