Two Republicans eye rematch with GOP Transportation chairman

The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee found himself facing off Thursday at an anti-abortion event with two men thinking about challenging him in a primary next year.

Tea Party favorite Art Halvorson and libertarian-leaning candidate Travis Schooley each told The Hill they’re mulling a rematch with Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), a close ally to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) who leads the influential Transportation panel.

{mosads}They say they’re angered Shuster voted this month to give Boehner another two years as Speaker and that GOP leadership decided at the last minute to yank a bill that would have banned almost all abortions after 20 weeks.

“I don’t trust [Shuster]. I don’t think he represents by a long shot the people of this district,” Halvorson said in an interview at the Pennsylvania GOP March for Life Reception, marking the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision. And he called Shuster’s vote this month to give Boehner another two years as Speaker “reprehensible.”

“John Boehner is one of the reasons I’m thinking about running because John Boehner has to go,” said Halvorson, who joined Thursday’s March for Life on the National Mall. “Shuster is his loyal lieutenant. Shuster is chairman of Transportation because of John Boehner. Shuster has Boehner’s total loyalty.”

The two potential candidates stared up at Shuster when he stepped to the microphone Thursday at at the Pennsylvania anti-abortion gathering at the Capitol.

Shuster campaign spokesman Sean Joyce declined to comment about his boss’s potential challengers but said the eight-term congressman was glad to meet with his constituents who attended Thursday’s march.

“He appreciates them standing with him, and appreciates their continued support for his efforts to advance pro-life policies,” Joyce said.

Shuster easily defeated the two challengers in his primary last May, taking about 53 percent of the vote in southwestern Pennsylvania’s 9th Congressional District, the reddest in the Keystone State. Halvorson, a real-estate investor and retired Coast Guard captain, received 35 percent, while Schooley, an Army veteran who works for his local township, finished with nearly 13 percent.

But Halvorson, who self-funded his last campaign, said he’d be a wiser candidate this time around: He has a better sense of where to invest his dollars, has better name ID now and knows where his pockets of strength are in the sprawling district, he said.

Halvorson notes that he received more votes than Shuster in Bedford County, where both men call home.

“I got one out of three votes and I started from zero. It was my first run for public office at any level, and I got 35 percent of the vote,” said Halvorson, who said he’ll decide whether to jump in before the summer. “He’s imminently beatable.”

At the same reception, Schooley said his three young children would be a big factor in his decision-making, but he argued that challenging entrenched, incumbent lawmakers was the only way to change Washington.

“Political activism is good and it’s effective, but in my opinion you don’t get quite the results when you threaten their job or make them get out on the streets and make them explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it,” Schooley said in an interview.

“It puts a different kind of heat on them. In the end, we get better representation if there is heat.”