State Rep. Bryan Cutler, the former Speaker of the Pennsylvania House and current leader of his party’s caucus in the chamber, unsurprisingly has piled up endorsements from many of the commonwealth’s leading GOP lawmakers and conservative groups as he faces a challenge from the right in next month’s primary.
He’s backed by two of the three state senators who represent the county, the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, a staunch conservative who played a leading role in the Republican takeover of Washington in the 1990s.
But in his home county, several Republican House members so far have stayed quiet, endorsing neither Cutler nor his challenger, landscaper Dave Nissley of Sadsbury Township.
State Reps. Brett Miller and Keith Greiner, of East Hempfield and Upper Leacock, respectively, did not respond to messages seeking comment on whether they support Cutler, their caucus leader, in the April 23 primary.
State Rep. Tom Jones, of East Donegal, declined over the phone to comment on the race.
And while state Rep. Dave Zimmerman, of East Earl Township, confirmed via text that he has not endorsed Cutler or Nissley, he didn’t respond when asked if he planned to.
What these House members have in common that might explain why they have not publicly endorsed Cutler is that they, along with most House Republicans, opposed Cutler’s effort to last year to elect Berks County Democrat Mark Rozzi as House Speaker.
The Rozzi move came after Democrats gained a one-seat majority in the November 2022 election. But after two Democratic House members gave up their seats to take other elected positions and another died before the election, Democrats technically lacked the majority when lawmakers convened in early January 2023.
Cutler has repeatedly said Rozzi had agreed to act as an independent speaker and only vote on the floor to break ties, effectively giving Republicans more power over House proceedings. Rozzi never left the Democratic Party and eventually resigned as speaker after two special elections gave Democrats their one-seat majority.
But Nissley and several far-right grassroots organizations supporting his candidacy have made the Rozzi vote central to their attacks against Cutler.
And at the time, Zimmerman was one of the most vocal House Republicans to speak out against the move, writing for a conservative publication that it was “a total betrayal of the Republican caucus and the people who sent us to Harrisburg to represent their interests.”
Jones, who was in his first month in the Legislature when the Rozzi vote happened, told LNP | LancasterOnline last year that he could “go into a long critique” of what happened but that he didn’t think it was necessary.
Zimmerman and Jones are both members of the conservative Pennsylvania House Freedom Caucus, a state-level version of the House Freedom Caucus in Congress, which is led by Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry.
At the start of last year, Zimmerman was stripped of his committee assignments because he was thought to have backed Ephrata Township financial planner Mike Miller’s 2022 primary challenge to Cutler’s high school friend and close ally, state Sen. Ryan Aument of West Hempfield; Zimmerman has denied that he formally endorsed Miller.
Jones was also seen to be a Miller supporter since he signed nomination petitions to get Miller on the ballot. He has since said he works well with Cutler and Aument.
State Sen. Chris Gebhard, whose 48th District includes a northern sliver of the county, also declined to comment on any state House primaries.
‘A true conservative’
Some of the House members who have backed Cutler — like Mindy Fee, of Manheim Borough, and Steve Mentzer, of Manheim Township — who didn’t vote for Rozzi as speaker remain supporters of Cutler. State Sen. Scott Martin, of Martic Township, has also endorsed Cutler.
Aument, who was Cutler’s first campaign manager in 2006, said he has “seen firsthand how Bryan Cutler has stopped countless attempts by the Democrats in Harrisburg to threaten our Lancaster County values.”
Cutler remains the only state House member to face a primary contender in Lancaster County this year. In a reliably Republican district and no Democrat seeking the party’s nomination, it’s a foregone conclusion that the primary winner will go on to win the November general election in the 100th District, which covers the southern third of the county, reaching north to include Gap and a portion of Salisbury Township.
In his efforts to secure a 10th term, Cutler unanimously won the endorsement of the county GOP and garnered support from conservative groups like the Firearms Owners Against Crime and the political arms of the National Rifle Association and the National Federation of Independent Business Pennsylvania.
Last week, Santorum called Cutler “a true conservative.”
“In politics it is easy to criticize, but hard to get results,” Santorum said. “Pennsylvania needs more honest conservatives who know how to win these and other tough battles against the radical left at a critical time in our nation’s history.”
