Democrat Oliver vying for PA House seat long held by Sonney, GOP

Chelsea Oliver grew up a small-town girl in western Pennsylvania.

A Democrat in a mostly Republican family, Oliver believes she knows the issues facing and the ideologies driving rural Pennsylvania voters.

A former Corry City Council member, Oliver, 33, says the experience she gained working as a public servant on a panel of mostly Republicans makes her an ideal candidate to replace longtime state Rep. Curt Sonney in the 4th Legislative District. Sonney, a Republican, will retire at the end of the year after 18 years in office.

"I feel like rural places and small towns are being left behind in Harrisburg," Oliver said about her bid for state representative. "I want to make sure that that doesn't happen in the future of Erie County. I also have a lot of experience with being on Corry City Council and working with a bunch of nonprofits in the area. I have a lot to offer the people of our county and I felt like this was the next right step."

Oliver, a freelance marketing and public relations consultant, faces Republican Jake Banta in the Nov. 8 general election. She's trying to become the first Democrat to hold the seat since Thomas Scrimenti, whose 2004 defeat at the hands of Sonney put the seat in firm Republican control for close to 18 years.

In fact, Oliver is the first Democrat in a decade to even file to run for the 4th District seat.

Her opponent:Banta, fueled by discredited conspiracies, eyes Pa. House 4th District seat

Even with Sonney retiring, though, the district poses challenges for the Democrat. It's become slightly more Republican since redistricting changed its boundaries. As of March, 49.57% of registered voters were Republicans, 36.5% were Democrats and 13.94% were independents or affiliated with a third party. Oliver will need to win support from Republicans, as well as independents and Democrats, to pull off the upset.

But Oliver said she's positioned to do that because she understands the wants and needs of the district's rural voters, even those who might not align with her politically.

"Everyone in my family except for my brother and I are Republicans," Oliver said, "so these are conversations that I have all of the time anyway," she said. "Everyone that I worked with on council was Republican and we always came to terms and were able to agree to put the community first.

"This position (state representative) is still very local," she continued. "It's not so much about party politics or, you know, just voting with your party, but more so about making sure that our schools are taken care of and people have jobs and are able to actually work. I still believe that it's very localized and it's helping your neighbors more so than just relying on your party and just voting with the Democrats."

Involved in the community

Oliver grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania. Her mother worked for decades at Geneva College in Beaver County and her father ran a construction company. After high school, Oliver attended Seton Hill University, where in 2011 she earned a bachelor's degree in new media journalism and communications. Two years later, Oliver earned a master's degree in public relations and advertising from Point Park University in Pittsburgh.

Not long after, Oliver moved to Corry and got involved in the community. In 2015, she became a board member for Impact Corry, a nonprofit that is driving community and economic development in Corry. Oliver served on the legacy and public relations committees and designed Impact Corry's website. She left the agency in March 2021 after nearly six years of volunteer service.

She co-founded the Corry Young Professionals Network in 2019 and began serving on the board of trustees of the Corry Area Arts Council in 2020. She also volunteers as an instructor for the Corry Higher Education Council.

Oliver wrote a column for the Corry Journal for three years, starting in June 2015. In September of that year, she was hired as a marketing specialist by the Corry Area Federal Credit Union, where she was employed until May 2021, when she started her own business as an advertising and marketing specialist.

Oliver's stint on Corry City Council ran from August 2020 until the end of 2021.

Republican Dave Mitchell worked well with Oliver

Former Corry Mayor Dave Mitchell, who also served on Erie County Council, and has four decades of political experience, remembers when Oliver interviewed for the appointment to Corry City Council to finish the unexpired term of Taree Hamilton.

"She had done a lot of work in the community with the young professionals," Mitchell said. "We selected her and put her in the parks and recreation area. She did an excellent job. It was one of her strong points because she had worked with so many organizations and that's what that particular spot does, is works with community groups and puts on events."

Mitchell, who considers himself a moderate, first served as Corry mayor from 1982 to 1986. He then represented the sprawling 6th District of Erie County Council from 1996 to 2009. Later he worked as director of the Northwest Pennsylvania office of Gov. Tom Corbett's administration for four years. In 2017, Mitchell said he was called upon by community leaders to run for mayor again because the city, he said, was in turmoil.

By working together, Mitchell said Corry City Council and his administration returned stability to the city.

"Chelsea was a big part of that," he said, noting that he did not know at the time who he will vote for on Nov. 8.

In the 2021 general election, an anti-incumbency write-in campaign led to the defeats of Mitchell, Oliver and others from city government.

Jim Wertz, the chairman of the Erie County Democratic Party, is well aware of just how competitive the district is for his party. But that's not deterred Oliver, according to Wertz.

"She's working her ass off," he said.

Oliver's priorities

Oliver's concentration is on creating and retaining good-paying jobs and opening opportunities for the people of the 4th District.

She's also focused on making high-speed internet both affordable and accessible to people "within the rural parts of the district." Because of these obstacles, many residents also haven't developed the skills to use this technology. Oliver is committed to "the investment in digital adoption and literacy to set our communities up for success."

"From there, we really are focusing on making sure students have better futures, workers have better futures, and all of the health care, mental health care resources are able to be accessed from rural Erie County so that we're not always having to go into the city for those resources," she said.

Abortion

Oliver said she will fight against efforts by Republican lawmakers who want to roll back abortion rights and ban the medical procedure outright.

"I believe those are very personal decisions that the government has no place in making for other people," Oliver said. "It's not my life that will be affected by that decision either way, so I shouldn't have the authority to make that decision for somebody else."

If Republicans or voters — through a constitutional amendment — ban abortion in Pennsylvania, Oliver said legislators will have "step up to the plate" to provide for families that might not have the resources to raise a child.

"That even goes down to providing universal pre-K education and making sure that the earliest learners have that space to do so," she said, "making sure that people have livable wages so that they can actually provide for their families, making sure that health care is affordable and available for all kinds of folks, because we are just, at that point, forcing births onto people without knowing their life situations.

2020 election

Unlike her Republican opponent, Banta, Oliver believes the results of the 2020 presidential election are accurate.

Election reform

Oliver opposes efforts to restrict mail-in voting. She believes voting should be made more accessible, not less.

"Everyone should be allowed and able to vote however is most accessible to them, so I am a proponent for vote-by-mail," she said. "Voting in general should be more accessible and easy for people. I would really like to see Election Day actually be a national holiday, so folks can get there without having to hope that they can get through line on their lunch break or hope that they can get there in time after work and having to pick up their kids."

Republicans, including her opponent, Banta, want to rescind Act 77 of 2019, which allowed all Pennsylvania voters to vote by mail, not just those who are eligible for absentee ballots.

Legalizing recreational-use marijuana

Gov. Tom Wolf and his potential Democratic successor, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, have called for Pennsylvania to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is running for U.S. Senate, has been the biggest proponent of legalization.

Oliver also favors legalizing recreational marijuana as 19 states, Washington, D.C., and Guam have done.

"With so many neighboring states already legalized, Pennsylvania is about to lose out on millions in potential tax revenue if we do not legalize recreational marijuana, especially important to consider in Erie County where we border two states," Oliver said about New York — where lawmakers have already acted on legalizing it — and Ohio, whose voters will consider a ballot initiative in 2023. "That revenue has been able to help fund health care, health education, substance abuse treatment and prevention, law enforcement, school programming, and infrastructure; all areas of which Pennsylvania struggles to find adequate funding."

'I get what it's like to live here'

Oliver hopes voters consider her roots, her experience and her plans for the district.

"I have lived in Western Pennsylvania, in small towns, my entire life," she said. "I get what it's like to live here. I get it also because of my experience with Corry, the kinds of things that we need to do to make change and progress for our area. And it's really about that at this level.

"Sure, there's some division coming out because of Supreme Court rulings, but at the state level, currently, we really need to focus on making sure our local neighbors are taken care of. Everyone can get behind hard work. Everyone can get behind giving back to your community and everyone can get behind actually caring for your neighbors. And that's what I'm running on."

The 4th Legislative District includes the city of Corry; Edinboro, Elgin, Girard, Lake City, McKean, Mill Village, North East, Platea, Union City, Waterford, and Wattsburg boroughs; Amity, Concord, Franklin, Girard, Greenfield, Leboeuf, McKean, North East, Union, Venango, Washington, Waterford and Wayne townships.

Candidate bio:

• Chelsea Oliver

• Party: Democrat

• Age: 33

• Occupation: Freelance marketing and public relations consultant

• Education: Seton Hill University, bachelor's degree in new media journalism and communications. Point Park University, master's degree in public relations and advertising

• Family: Single, no children

• Information: votechelseaoliver.com, twitter.com/VoteChelseaO, facebook.com/votechelseaoliver

Matthew Rink can be reached at mrink@timesnews.com and on Twitter at @ETNRink.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Corry Democrat Oliver hopes for upset in PA House race against Banta