Many residents of Bucks County, Pennsylvania remember Andy Warren as one of their Republican commissioners in the 1980s and 90s. Now he’s asking them to put him back on the job by nominating him for the GOP slate on Tuesday and electing him in November.
Warren, of Middletown Township, is running for one of two seats on the county Board of Commissioners while the Bucks County Republican Committee is backing incumbent Gene DiGirolamo (pictured above, right) and County Controller Pamela Van Blunk. Two Republicans will get nominated to face Democratic incumbents Diane Ellis-Marseglia (pictured above, left) and Robert Harvie in the fall, with seats going to the top three vote getters.
Democrats have enjoyed a majority on the commission since 2020. During that time, the conservative Warren has attended over 90 percent of board meetings and penned 27 articles and letters on governance for local publications. In 2021, he and coauthor Hal Marcovitz released a book titled Notes on Bucks County about area concerns.
“I just really believe in the position, I believe in the people… and I know the job,” Warren told The Pennsylvania Daily Star.
In Warren’s estimation, DiGirolamo turned the Democratic majority into a monopoly wherein Ellis-Marseglia and Harvie go utterly unchallenged. This, he said, is made plain by the minority commissioner’s failure to vote contrary to the Democrats even once in three and a half years on the board during which DiGirolamo cast over 3,000 votes.
“It was always my understanding that the position of county commissioner, by design, is to be an adversarial governmental check and balance, a loyal opposition type thing,” Warren said. “Not combative…. But it’s supposed to give residents and voters each a voice. The residents are supposed to have influence from the two major parties.”
A former William Tennent High School social-studies teacher who also served as a SEPTA board member and nonprofit head, he questioned what Bucks’s 196,480 Republican voters gain from a GOP commissioner whose policy agenda matches that of the Democrats.
“We might as well have a unanimous [Democratic] board,” he said.
Warren said one especially striking moment came when county Solicitor Joe Khan stepped down from that $154,000-per-year position and the board voted to allow him to take on similar duties under the title of “special counsel.” In his new part-time role, he makes $77,000 annually and retains benefits.
Amid all of this, Khan is exploring a 2024 Democratic candidacy for state attorney general. Warren said Khan would have been less well-poised to undertake a statewide run when he had a full-time job with the county.
“He would have been really open to criticism,” the commissioner candidate said.
That wasn’t DiGirolamo’s only vote advantageous to Democratic political bigwigs. The Republican commissioner also made the motion to appoint then-Bucks County Democratic Committee Chair John Cordisco to the SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) board.
Another disappointment Warren expressed about DiGirolamo concerned the commissioners’ treatment of Megan Brock and Jamie Walker, two women who challenged the county’s strict COVID-19 policies favoring masking, vaccines and lockdowns. With the DiGirolamo’s support, the county sued the the activists in an attempt to refuse their right-to-know requests pertaining to the issue. The requesters nonetheless prevailed in court.
The significance of the Republican commissioner’s assent wasn’t lost on Ellis-Marseglia.
“It was all three commissioners —100 percent — along with our staff — 100 percent — on all decisions we made,” she said at the board’s May 3 meeting.
Although Van Blunk is running on a party-endorsed slate with DiGirolamo, she too criticized the Democratic commissioners for their litigation to keep COVID-related documents unseen, leaving her running mate’s name out of it.
“The Court [of Common Pleas] found that Bucks County — led by Majority Democrat Commissioners — acted in bad faith withholding public documents from its residents,” the controller wrote in a Facebook post. “Commissioners Bob Harvie and Diane Ellis-Marseglia are irresponsibly spending taxpayer dollars to hide communications that the public, including Megan Brock, have a right to see.”
Van Blunk urged the Democratic commissioners to cease “wasteful spending” on litigation and release the records Walker requested as well.
Warren said he believes Van Blunk, who he previously ran against for controller, is ready and able to serve as a county commissioner and he would support her if GOP voters choose her to run alongside him for the two majority seats on the three-member board.
“She’ll be a formidable candidate,” he said. “But she’s got to be coupled with someone who can make issues issues and not be blunted. And the fact that Diane was so vociferous [about DiGirolamo’s acquiescence]…, that’s a preview of coming attractions on every single issue for years.”
DiGirolamo’s record as a commissioner has been unsurprising in light of his voting history as a state representative representing the Bensalem area from 1995 to 2020. During that time, he voted farther left on economic issues than nearly all of his Republican colleagues. So steadfastly did DiGirolamo support labor unions that he was one of only eight House Republicans to opposes a bill closing a legal loophole immunizing union members from prosecution for violence during labor disputes. (Pro-union Democratic Governor Tom Wolf signed the bill.)
Warren himself hasn’t always been a Republican partisan. Twenty years ago, taking slightly more moderate political views than he does today, he left the GOP for three years and ran for county commissioner as a Democrat, something he describes as “the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.” Today, Warren is a frequent attendee at conservative-movement gatherings and asserts he would govern as a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, small-government constitutionalist.
“I’m a proud Republican,” he said. “I’m proud of what Republicans believe. And the fact that the executive committee of my party endorses somebody who never, ever voted Republican [on county policy], they ought to be asked, ‘What the hell are you guys doing?’ So that’s what I’m doing.”
DiGirolamo and Van Blunk’s campaign did not respond to an interview request.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Gene DiGirolamo” by Bucks County Republican Committee. Photo “Diane Ellis-Marseglia” by Bucks County. Background Photo “Bucks County Courthouse” by Smallbones.
