Republican state Sen. Chuck McIlhinney and Democratic challenger Steve Cickay met in a voter forum hosted by the Bucks County League of Women Voters on Oct. 23.
The 10th Senatorial District debate was held at the Central Bucks Senior Center in Doylestown.
McIlhinney, a two-term incumbent, opened by laying out his experience in politics as a former Doylestown Borough Councilman and member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1998 to 2006.
Cickay, a Newtown resident, commended his competitor for his longtime public service, but said he would seek to convince those present that Sen. McIlhinney “has spent a little too much time in Harrisburg, and maybe needs to look for another profession where he could be more successful.”
Immediately, Cickay pointed toward a “critical funding problem” as the cause for Pennsylvania’s troubled infrastructure. “The current administration has not done enough,” he said.
McIlhinney countered this point, citing the recently passed transportation bill for support.
“We generated over $1 billion for our roads, our bridges and our infrastructure,” McIlhinney said. “I’m sure he’s going to try to blame me for a lot of the things the governor has done over the past few years, but the one thing that the governor did accomplish was establishing an infrastructure program in Pennsylvania and I was pleased to be able to support that.”
On education, Cickay again criticized the Corbett administration, saying the education budget has been “decimated” and that public education is “under attack.” He linked budget cuts in education to rising property taxes in the state.
McIlhinney said that it was the administration of former Gov. Ed Rendell that “got us into this,” because “he took federal stimulus money and cut the education dollars coming out of the state.” He went on to say that local schools do not get a “fair share” of funding from the state, especially in comparison to Philadelphia schools.
McIlhinney offered a first step for pension reform, saying that new employees should be offered a “401k-type approach,” but existing employees with vested pensions should retain them and that voiding existing pensions would be “unconstitutional.”
Cickay criticized McIlhinney, saying that “there was no pension problem before 2002, but at that point the people in Harrisburg voted to give themselves a raise in their pension multiplier and created the problem by not funding the government’s share of pensions.”
The candidates did agree that there should not be open primaries, and Cickay encouraged the idea of more political parties.
Cickay voiced support for a 5-percent gas extraction tax that could generate “$700 million to $1 billion that could be used for education, for our roads and bridges.” Oil companies coming into Pennsylvania “must be laughing all the way to the bank,” he said.
“The extraction tax that my opponent talked about would only generate about $600 million according to the Wolf campaign right now,” McIlhinney responded. He does support an extraction tax, but not to fund public education, because “that’s going to end up in places outside of Bucks County.” Infrastructure should come first, he said.
Both candidates said that early childhood education needs to be a priority, and McIlhinney acknowledged that pre-k programs already exist throughout the district.
They also both asserted that they are willing to work outside their respective parties. “I do what’s best for Bucks,” McIlhinney said, citing his opposition to gas drilling in Pennsylvania state parks.
Cickay referenced his standing up to “the party bosses in Philadelphia,” who sought to replace him with Shaughnessy Naughton, who lost the Democratic primary in the 8th Congressional District to Kevin Strouse. “I am a person who fights for principle, not ideology,” he said.
McIlhinney seeks campaign finance reform that makes candidates accountable for their funding by making it publicly available, and warned about Super PACs “buying elections up.”
Cickay agreed, calling special interest groups and corporate corruption “one of the biggest problems facing our democracy.”
McIlhinney said he is against term limits for state legislators, while Cickay argued that “career politicians are more focused on getting reelected than governing.”
Cickay supported raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, and McIlhinney offered that the minimum wage should rise with inflation but gave no specific figure.
Perhaps the most hostile moment between the candidates was the discussion of the voter ID law. Cickay called it unconstitutional and took a shot at McIlhinney, who voted in favor of it, saying that his wife told him McIlhinney has a law degree.
“A doctor usually knows the difference between a healthy and a sick person, and I would expect a lawyer to know the difference between a constitutional and unconstitutional law,” he said.
McIlhinney corrected Cickay, saying that his father has a law degree and his own degree is in finance.
“You’re saying that my reason for supporting it was to suppress the vote, well, that’s like me saying your reason for not supporting it is that you’re in favor of fraud,” McIlhinney said, drawing a few groans from the audience.
In closing, McIlhinney reiterated his political experience and asked Cickay to lay out what he’s done for the last 16 years, “besides working for the IRS.”
Cickay closed, saying that the district needs “a new vision.”
“I like Chuck. Chuck’s a good guy. He did work for 16 years. He tried his best, but look around, you have a lot of problems,” Cickay said.
