Osborne and Nissley vie to succeed Cutler; endorsement comes Tuesday

Former Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler, a Republican who represents much of eastern and southern Lancaster County in Harrisburg, will exit his seat after this year. Two names familiar to much of the 100th Legislative district have launched GOP primary campaigns to replace him. 

Sadsbury Township-based entrepreneur Dave Nissley attempted to unseat Cutler in a primary two years ago, garnering a respectable but unavailing 46.4 percent of the Republican nomination vote. His opponent this time is retired Pennsylvania State Trooper Kelly Osborne, who has served on the Lampeter-Strasburg School Board since December 2022. Next Tuesday, the two face a key battle in their quest for Cutler’s seat when Republican Committee of Lancaster County members will gather at the Farm and Home Center in Lancaster to endorse one of them.

Osborne’s decision to run for Cutler’s office came about quickly after Cutler announced his retirement in December. Her community service includes board memberships in the Southern Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, Quarryville Police Foundation, Wakefield EMS, and the Pilot Club of Lancaster. 

“I thought, what better person to run for this office who cares about the community [and] is a public servant?” she said. “And I thought, ‘That’s me.’”

The former trooper got to know many communities in Lancaster County’s southern end while patrolling there. 

“I feel like this opportunity is just an extension of the public service that I did as a trooper for over 20 years,” she said. 

In addition to support for law enforcment, Osborne foresees farmland preservation in agricultural locales like her own district as a major focus of her efforts in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, should she join it. She also mentioned education as a priority issue, with an emphasis on backing school choice, a subject on which her fellow Republicans hoped to see progress since Josh Shapiro won the governorship in 2022. (Despite Shapiro’s favorable words about lifeline scholarships before his election, he line-item vetoed a 2023 budget item that would have made them available to families with children in poorly performing schools.) 

Her own experience in education policy spurred what she considers a major accomplishment of hers in a related area: tax policy. She has opposed tax hikes every time they have been proposed since she became a school director. 

“In our district, we have a lot of retired people, elderly people who have trouble paying their taxes because [of] the property tax rates, and we want to make sure these folks can stay in their homes,” she said. While she noted the office she seeks will present her with a learning curve on state taxes, she said her ultimate goal is to make them “as fair as possible…, encouraging Pennsylvania to be a positive-income financial powerhouse.” 

Nissley explained his decision to revive his bid for state representative in terms he believes resonate with the largely traditional, freedom-minded voters who abound in communities like Gap, Quarryville, and Drumore that compose the district. 

“I’m a big believer that government is designed to be limited and that our opportunities come from the freedoms that are God-given,” he said. “And so I feel that, in our representative republic, that is why we have to run: putting taxpayers first, keeping the government to abiding by the [state and federal] constitutions. And in my particular case, I’m in a place in life where I can serve. I don’t need to do this for the job; I can do it truly in a serving way.”

His longtime career has been in business, something he considers a natural consequence of his upbringing insofar as his father was a businessman. He recalls his father’s experience of bankruptcy during President Jimmy Carter’s administration as a memory that shaped his understaning of the challenges of entrepreneurship and how government can affect it. 

His own business efforts originated in landscaping and ramified into hospitality and campgrounds.

“I love it,” he said of his work in small business. “I think it’s the backbone of our county. There’s a lot of small business here. It’s a way of life; it’s a way of thinking…. It comes with a mindset that’s essential for freedom.”  

Support for small business via deregulation and tax reform topped his list of policy priorities. He added some more “audacious goals,” among them ending abortion and ridding Harrisburg of corruption. A General Assembly seat would be his first chance to tackle such matters as an elected official. He has served in one appointed public office, on his municipal planning commission. His community service includes an active and formerly leadership role in the Gap-based Chestnut Church.

His matchup against Osborne for the RCLC endorsement next week comes on the heels of a district GOP committee straw poll held January 21, during which Osborne won 24 votes compared with Nissley’s 14. Osborne, citing what she considers LCRC’s “long history of endorsing strong candidates,” said she believes the organization’s members should vote on an endorsement, she “will accept the outcome accordingly,” and feels confident going into that vote on Tuesday.

Nissley disagreed on the need for that process, suggesting that intraparty contests ultimately benefit Republicans.

“An open primary provides a good, healthy competition,” he said. “And that competition is what engages voters, it’s what gets us in front of the voters who talk about issues, it helps us raise money, [and] it helps us bring brand new voters into the Republican Party by registration or just getting them involved.” 

Should a primary contest ensue, registered Republicans will choose between Osborne and Nissley on May 19. While the two have different views of that matter, they didn’t voice any negativity when about each other.

“I think he and I have a lot of the same opinions and we share a lot of the same values,” Osborne said, adding, “I think we both want the same things for our district,” a sentiment Nissley also offered.

Osborne praised the man she hopes to replace.

“I am grateful for the service Representative Cutler provided our district for nearly two decades and I wish him well on his future endeavors,” she said.

Even Nissley, despite his earlier campaign against the former speaker in which Nissley positioned himself as an outsider challenging the GOP establishment, expressed some kindness toward his former foe.

“Cutler was a hard worker,” he said. “I think even as representative he always worked hard.” 

Cutler himself has not made any official endorsement in the race. He did not reply to an email requesting comment. 

At this writing, no Democrat has opened a campaign committee to seek the seat. Cutler had no Democratic challenger since 2018 and he beat that candidate, Dale Hamby, by 44 percentage points. The GOP incumbent achieved the same point margin against the same opponent two years earlier. 

“Historically, I don’t expect we’ll see a serious challenge from a Democrat in this race,” Nissley said, stressing that point as a reason the county GOP should forgo endorsing either him or Osborne. He reasoned that a contentious primary wouldn’t deprive the nominee of resources needed to eventually defeat a Democrat.

Bradley Vasoli is the senior editor of The Independence.