An unusual House race between two Pennsylvania Republicans is heating up, with legal action and love lives being dragged into the fight just weeks before Election Day.
The Pennsylvania State Police this week cited Art Halvorson, who is running to unseat Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), for allegedly harassing a Shuster campaign staffer at a county fair over the summer.
{mosads}Halvorson, armed with a new attack ad highlighting Shuster’s relationship with an airline lobbyist, is now pushing back with a defamation suit.
It’s just the latest bizarre twist for Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, as the veteran lawmaker faces a tougher than expected reelection race.
Shuster has already beaten Halvorson, a Tea Party-backed candidate and retired Coast Guard captain, twice in the primaries.
But after losing the primary by a slim margin this year, Halvorson earned enough write-in votes to run on the Democratic ticket in the general election. In a largely unprecedented move, Halvorson opted to run as a Democrat while vowing to serve as a Republican in Congress.
The two men are competing to represent Pennsylvania’s 9th district, one of the reddest districts in the battleground state. While there has been no public polling of the race, both candidates are running as if it’s competitive.
Halvorson has portrayed Shuster as a Washington insider and attacked the lawmaker during a primary debate over his romantic relationship with Shelley Rubino, the vice president of global government affairs at Airlines for America.
Halvorson ramped up the rhetoric last week with a new ad accusing both Shuster and his father Bud, a longtime former congressman and committee chairman, of having inappropriate ties to lobbyists.
“Shuster’s record in Congress doesn’t match our values, because he serves the special interests,” the ad says. “It’s time to end the corrupt, self-serving Shuster dynasty.”
Shuster ripped the ad, which was released not long after his mother died.
“I’m no wallflower,” Shuster told the Altoona Mirror. “When it comes to politics, I’ve been doing this for a while… But for my opponent to attack not just me, but to attack my family less than 24 hours after my mother was buried, I have mixed emotions.”
Halvorson pointed out that the ad was actually delayed out of respect for the family and that Shuster himself was campaigning following his mother’s death.
“Mr. Shuster, for his part, has been out campaigning during this period, but we held the ad anyway,” Halvorson said. “It’s totally justified. We don’t apologize whatsoever.”
Shuster came out swinging with an ad of his own, taking the unusual step of using his ex-wife Rebecca to vouch for his family values and blast his opponent’s attacks as “shameful.”
“You’ve heard a lot of misinformation about my family and my ex-husband Bill, so I thought it was time to speak out,” she says in the commercial. “He’s a dedicated dad. Bill has fought for our values and has been a tireless advocate for our communities.”
The race took another ugly turn this week, when the state police issued a citation against Halvorson for an incident involving a Shuster campaign staffer earlier this summer.
Meghan Boocks, 22, said Halvorson came up to her campaign booth at the Fayette County Fair and grabbed her “tightly by the wrist” while pressing Boocks about her involvement with Shuster’s campaign, according to a report that was later filed with the security firm in charge of the event.
Halvorson denies the accusations and insists only a calm conversation took place. He cast the effort as an attempt by the Shuster campaign to smear him.
Halvorson’s campaign sent out a press release on Thursday announcing that he is mounting a “full legal counter-offensive” against the allegations, which will include a defamation lawsuit against the staffer and a request that the Fayette County district attorney prosecute the woman for filing a false report.
“This is a political hit job that the Shuster campaign pulled directly from the Hillary Clinton’s playbook on character assassination, just before the election,” said Halvorson’s spokesman Joe Sterns. “The abuse of the legal and judicial systems for political purposes is a travesty that Art Halvorson simply will not stand for.”
Shuster’s campaign pounced on the response, accusing Halvorson of continued harassment and painting him as being distrustful of the police.
“Not only is he attempting to continue to harass and intimidate Miss Boocks with his continued remarks in the media and threats of a lawsuit,” said Casey Contres, Shuster’s campaign spokesman, “he is now calling into question the credibility of Magistrate [Richard Kasunic] and the Pennsylvania State Police, one of the most respected police organizations in the country, who made the decision to file these charges against him.”