Oct 25, 2014 4 min read

As we point out in an article in today’s edition, Pennsylvania’s Ninth Congressional District stretches from Waynesboro almost to Waynesburg, a distance of about 180 miles. To get from one point to the other by car would take you about three-and-a-half hours.

To put that in perspective, it would take less time for a Waynesburg resident to drive to downtown Cleveland than it would to get to the easternmost point in the Ninth Congressional District.

Configured after the 2010 U.S. Census, the Ninth District is an unwieldy beast. It may not be like “a supine sea serpent with genitalia pointing toward Wheeling,” as former state Rep. Bill DeWeese once, in typically colorful fashion, described the state’s 49th Legislative District, but it’s some kind of monster – it encompasses Indiana, Altoona, Chambersburg, Uniontown, Connellsville and segments of Washington and Greene counties, with plenty of tiny crossroads in between.

Given the vast expanse of the district, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Bill Shuster, the congressman who has represented the district since 2001, has been little seen or heard from in these parts. Attempts by our editorial board to interview him as we pondered endorsements in this election season came to naught, with multiple unreturned phone calls. A reporter working on a story about the race between Shuster and Democratic opponent Alanna Hartzok was told that the congressman was unavailable for a phone conversation, but would instead answer questions by email.

Given the very strong likelihood that the Republican Shuster will win in a district that is solidly loyal to the GOP – the only time a Democrat has won the seat over the last century was when Oliver Frey was elected in a special election in 1933, at the depths of the Depression and just one year after Franklin Roosevelt and a Democratic Congress were swept into office – we hope that in the next two years he will be more visible to his constituents in this corner of the state.

Shuster took the seat in the Ninth District after his father, Bud Shuster, stepped down after a 28-year tenure in Congress. Shuster espouses relatively mainstream GOP positions, saying that he wants to lower taxes for small businesses, reduce regulations and also slice away what he says are unnecessary regulations on the coal and natural gas industries, the former of which has been a fixture in the Ninth District for decades and the latter of which is a relatively new kid on the block.

We were able to talk to Hartzok, and she is not a run-of-the-mill sacrificial lamb being placed on the ballot for slaughter. A 65-year-old activist who has migrated from the Republican to the Green and now to the Democratic Party, she has served as a director of the Earth Rights Institute, an environmental advocacy group, and has published assorted essays in a book, “The Earth Belongs to Everyone.” Hartzok styles herself a progressive Democrat in the mold of Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and says that income inequality is a national issue that must be addressed. In the highly unlikely event Hartzok is elected, we have little doubt she would be an outspoken advocate for the less well-heeled and the dispossessed.

However, we found her views on foreign policy unsettling. She advocates negotiating with the brutes and thugs in ISIS, as if zealots who behead and crucify their opponents are people with whom one can engage in a rational give and take, and believes we are making Russian president Vladimir Putin look bad.

Hartzok did offer one home truth: When it comes to Pennsylvania’s Ninth Congressional District, the way it is shaped “just doesn’t make any sense,” and illustrates the need for nonpartisan panels to draw district borders, not partisan politicians.