'It's been quite the journey': Rep. Curt Sonney reflects on 18 years of service:

In February of 2004, a maintenance worker for the now-shuttered Steris Corp. announced plans to run for state representative against an eight-term incumbent.

It was a tall order, given that the candidate had found himself on the losing end of a lopsided GOP primary for Harborcreek Township supervisor in which he failed to secure even 30% of his party's vote.

Curt Sonney, however, didn't like the representation he was getting in Harrisburg from Democrat Thomas Scrimenti, so he challenged him for the 4th Legislative District seat that Scrimenti had held since 1989.

Sonney wasn't deterred, though. After both he and Scrimenti went unchallenged in their parties' respective primaries, Sonney, who made health care and tax reform central issues in his campaign, would narrowly defeat the man he had dubbed a "career politician." Out of more than 26,000 votes, Sonney beat Scrimenti by 184 votes.

Eighteen years later, Sonney, now 65, is retiring to travel the country with his wife Cathy, spend time with his three adult children and four grandchildren, and tinker in his woodshop. He'll also do some remodeling at the couple's Harborcreek Township home and search for a second seasonal residence to spend winters in Florida.

"It's been quite the journey," Sonney said with just a few weeks remaining in his ninth term.

Sonney leaves office as the 13th ranked legislator in terms of seniority in the Republican caucus, and after completing two terms as chairman of the powerful House Education Committee. He announced his retirement almost a year ago, prompting a six-way GOP primary from which Sonney's successor emerged. Republican state representative-elect Jake Banta of Waterford easily beat Democrat Chelsea Oliver in the Nov. 8 general election.

Sonney reflects on career

During an interview with the Erie Times-News on Dec. 14, Sonney reflected on a lengthy career that coincided with the governorships of Ed Rendell, Tom Corbett and Tom Wolf. The following has been edited for length.

Back in 2004, did you ever think during that first run for this seat that you would go on to serve for 18 years?

I never gave it a lot of forward thinking. You know, I always felt throughout my life that you get out of a job what you put into the job. So if you're not willing to work hard at your job, then you probably won't be very successful. Hard work generally pays off. This job is the same way, other than the fact that in this job ... you stand for election every two years. Imagine what everybody's life would be like, imagine what your life would be like if every two years everybody at the paper voted who stayed and who went.

Why do you think voters have hired you again and again?

I think it was my work ethic. I was out, meeting and talking with people on a continual basis, you know, reaching out and doing events right away and making myself available and always willing to talk. I think being a good communicator obviously goes a long, long way.

There's two different approaches, I would say, to being a legislator. You can be out front and outspoken, in the public realm on a daily basis or you can be a little bit more behind the scenes and trying to work the system behind the scenes to advance what you want. Of course, that all requires building relationships in Harrisburg.

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What accomplishments are you most proud of?

There are actually two bills. One was the creation of the Erie County Land Bank, which I fought very, very, very hard for and in the end was successful in securing the $1 million to create the Land Bank. I always felt that a portion of that gaming money that ECGRA (Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority) was handling, we just needed it to enhance basically everybody's lives within the county. The Land Bank was the way that I felt we could have an impact on all of Erie County.

Land banks should grow in their wealth, so to speak, over time. It takes a little while to get them going. But having a million dollars a year in seed money year after year after year really gives you a kickstart. Everybody was dealing with blight and nobody had any money to deal with it.

It was very unique legislation, which gave (the county) more power to obtain those properties. Part of the real hang-up with communities trying to deal with blight was gaining ownership of those properties. It could sometimes be very difficult. The establishment of the Land Bank legislation started to give these land bank entities more power. That was crucial.

More:Republican state Rep. Curt Sonney of Harborcreek won't seek re-election

What's the other piece of legislation that you're proud of?

The redesign of the PASSHE (Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education) system.

That's been a lot of work, a lot of hard work, and not easy at all in terms of just the overall impact and people accepting change and all of that. The legislation passed overwhelmingly in both chambers, which is ironic. The implementation, now, that was a little bit of a different story. As the implementation began, obviously that's when the pushback really, really began because, you know, you're talking the loss of jobs and displacement of workers and the uncertainty of what this is going to look like. Ironically, on that one, passing the legislation was the easy part.

Do you feel like the jury is still out on whether or not this will be successful, or are you certain that in time people will look back at this and say this was the right move at the time?

That's hard to say, but one thing is for certain, if we would've done nothing several of those universities would probably be in closure. And Edinboro would've been at the top of the list. Their debt was too high, they had falling student enrollment. Creating these two larger universities within the system aligns them with the other schools in the system. They were too small to continue to survive.

What have been the toughest challenges of the job?

The challenges, in a general sense, are always budgetary, especially when you're in the majority, and believe me, I prefer to be in the majority. It's definitely harder being in the majority because now you are responsible for basically everything that happens.

Once the governor signs (the budget), now it's all his. He goes out and takes the credit for all the good things that are happening in state government. Well, he wouldn't have ever gotten any of those things if the legislature wouldn't have sent it to him. It's just something that you get used to as a legislator. You take the beating trying to pass all this stuff, but then in the end when it's good stuff, you don't get the credit for it anymore. The governor gets all the credit for it.

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What was the worst period for trying to get a budget passed?

The Rendell years were by far the worst. Ed Rendell was quite the politician. It didn't take long for people to understand how he operated. He would come into negotiations and say, "all I need is this." And when you finally came to an agreement on what that was, he says, 'Well, that's great, now I just need one more thing.' He always just needed one more thing. He didn't have any problems holding out. He didn't have any problems with shutting down government, so to speak. In those earlier days, state workers, the legislative body, everybody went to work, but you didn't get paid if there was a budget stalemate after June 30.

What else has been a challenge?

I think COVID changed so many things for so many people with those work-from-home policies that still haven't, at the state level, been lifted. Gov. Wolf never put his foot down to bring all the state workers back. As a legislator, it's been a nightmare. You just can't get any answers. You used to be able to pick up a phone and call just about any department you wanted to and speak with somebody. That all went out the window. Leave a message and keep your fingers crossed that somebody might call you back.

Before COVID, if we had a constituent with an unemployment problem any one of my staff could pick up the phone, call unemployment, work through what the problem was, get it straightened out. Once COVID hit, we'd just keep writing their names down on a list and email it every two weeks. We're talking hundreds of people on the list.

Did COVID open your eyes to certain things in state government?

Well, to me, that was just a total failure of the administration. It's fine and dandy to let people work from home provided they're working. But how do you know if they're working if you don't have a processes in place, and of course nothing was in place to be able to monitor or watch any of that because it didn't exist before COVID.

In the course of the 18 years, just doing some quick calculations in my head, I've probably been gone from home at least four years out of the last 18. It's 652 miles round trip. I've driven to the moon and back and then some.

Any problems during those back-and-forths?

Luckily not. I did have a transmission go out an hour and a half into Harrisburg, and I made it to the Chevy dealer the next day to get a transmission put in my truck, my 2010 Chevy pickup that I bought on Black Friday of 2010.

I drove that until March of this year. I was actually at an event at Gannon University, a breakfast event, and I went out and jumped in the truck and saw that it was at 354,999 miles. I thought, 'man, I'm going to watch this speedometer flip to 355,000 miles.' So I left Gannon and I'm heading out Sixth Street, and I keep, you know, glancing down looking, I want to see this thing pop, and I'm going, 'come on, when's it going to pop? Come on, come on.' I got all the way to East Avenue, so it must have just flipped the 999 when I parked. The next morning, I got in it, took a trip to Walmart, came back home, stopped at my mother's, ran in there to see her for a minute and came back out and hit the key. It sounded like a diesel. Something broke. So she's gone now. That one was toast.

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You never ran for higher office, like state senate or congress. Why?

I was never a big fundraiser. If you move up to higher office, you need a considerable amount of money. I don't want to ask people for money. That's difficult for me, to ask people for money. In some ways when you just sit back and just think about it, why would anybody give money to a politician?

What will you miss most about the job?

When you spend a good portion of your life dealing with people's problems and being pretty successful in helping them through ... those problems, having a great staff plays a huge part in that. I was very fortunate that I always had a very good staff.

I was fortunate that Jake Banta, who won the 4th District, took my employees and my offices. I think every retiring representative hopes to be able to place their staff and keep them employed. So I was obviously very happy that Jake took my staff.

More:By a big margin, Banta wins 4th Dist. seat in state House: Unofficial election results

A 'rarity' in the legislature

State Sen. Dan Laughlin, R-49th Dist., Millcreek Township, said he'll miss Sonney's candor and friendship.

"Curt is one of the most pragmatic legislators that I've worked with," Laughlin said. "He doesn't mince his words. You don't have to wonder where you stand with Curt. That's one of the things that I admired about him. He'd tell you straight up where he is at on an issue. He'd make his points on why he is either for or against something. And you didn't leave a conversation with Curt wondering how he was going to vote on something. That's a rarity in the legislature and it will be sadly missed."

Contact Matthew Rink at mrink@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ETNrink.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie-area Rep. Curt Sonney says work ethic kept him in office