After Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) narrowly won his primary race in April, the House Transportation and Infrastructure chairman was expected to redirect his energy to legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration.
But a major speed bump has foiled that plan: Shuster still faces the threat of an election challenge.
{mosads}Shuster’s tea party-backed opponent in the primary, Art Halvorson, has picked up enough write-ins from Democrats to potentially secure the Democratic nomination in the fall.
Although Halvorson hasn’t been officially offered the nomination yet or even decided if he would accept, the dragged out battle has been an added distraction for Shuster as he tries to push an ambitious proposal to separate the nation’s air traffic control from the FAA.
And Shuster won’t get clarity about the general election until sometime after June 15 – just one month before FAA’s current legal authority expires.
“He’s paying attention to this,” Halvorson told The Hill this week. “It’s an incredible opportunity, and I don’t want to minimize the significance of this – or the irony.”
Halvorson, a real estate investor and retired Coast Guard captain, narrowly lost to Shuster in the primary, 49.5 percent to 50.5 percen — a difference of 1,009 votes.
But that was a much slimmer margin than in the 2014 primary, when Shuster trounced Halvorson, 53 percent to 34 percent.
But while he conceded the race this time around, Halvorson has not given up. He began petitioning counties to accept Democratic write-ins for his name in an effort to run as the Democrat in the fall, which would require at least 1,000 votes.
As of this week, Halvorson said he has 1,080 write-in votes verified, while Democrat Adam Sedlock – who actually mounted a write-in campaign – has 1,036. Whoever has the most votes will be offered the party’s nomination.
There’s still one remaining county where a few more write-ins will be tallied next week, but not enough to put Sedlock ahead, according to Halvorson.
“A lot of people have questions of course. It’s very unusual,” Halvorson said. “We’re talking to a lot of people in the district because we want to be sure we’d win, so we’re practicing our due diligence here.”
Halvorson emphasized that he hasn’t decided whether he would actually run as a Democrat. Such a complicated and unprecedented move would require a massive mobilization effort to communicate to conservative voters that he is running as a Republican on the Democratic ticket but would serve as a GOP member in Congress.
Still, the bizarre prospect is just one more headache for Shuster, whose controversial plan to privatize air traffic control was already facing an uphill battle. The measure advanced out of committee in February, but has remained stalled amid opposition from GOP tax-writers, appropriators and Democrats alike.
The Senate passed its own FAA bill that does not contain the privatization proposal, though it includes a number of provisions to beef up airport security and speed up airport security lines.
A spokesman for Shuster said he has not made a decision about how to proceed on an FAA bill, saying “we’ll have more clarity on the direction we are going in over the next few weeks.”
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But with only 21 legislative days remaining in the House before FAA’s legal authority expires next month, the air traffic control overhaul doesn’t appear likely to get off the ground.
Halvorson, however, is sure to be hovering over Shuster’s head.