“Constituents don’t really care if we spend eight hours on the House floor voting for 300 bills that don’t really matter to them, like naming bridges or the official state song. They do care when we’re doing something to improve their quality of life.”
And instead of counting his attendance, Wheatley points to other examples of the work he’s done for constituents, including helping to get the grocery store in the Hill District built. He says that store was the product of a statewide effort in Harrisburg to address food insecurity.
“The federal government has modeled its national program after what we started,” Wheatley says. “People want to know why they should vote. Well, if you don’t have like-minded people who understand and care enough about your issue to take a policy and make it a reality, there wouldn’t be a grocery store in the Hill.”
And without his 13 years of experience in the House, Wheatley says, programs like these never would’ve been created.
“Think about the experience I’ve accumulated and what happens when you take that experience off the table,” he says. “I’ve gained relationships both with Democrats and Republicans in Harrisburg. All of those things matter in my ability to push an agenda for the people I represent. I don’t have to go through two or four or six years of learning, I’ve already done that. I joke that it took me four years to find out where the bathrooms were, but now I understand how the system works.”
But Wolfe argues Wheatley’s experience can actually be harmful for his constituents because of the dysfunction she sees in Harrisburg. Throughout her career as a social worker, she says she’s seen firsthand how the decisions of state legislatures hurt people, and she points to the state budget stalemate as a current example.
“It’s just very difficult working on the individual level to really effect a lot of change,” says Wolfe. “Everything I do is impacted by funding or policy or regulation by the state government. So I have to get in that room. I have to sit at that table. I have to be part of that discussion because I really don’t believe most of the people who make those decisions understand how those decisions impact people’s real lives.”
And while some might be critical of the fact that her husband is a former Wheatley aide, she isn’t bothered by their criticism. She says her husband’s experience taught her lessons that will be beneficial for serving in the legislature and will ensure she doesn’t start at a disadvantage.
“There aren’t that many people who actually know what a state representative does and I’m well versed. It was dinner-table conversation,” says Wolfe. “I know the narrative that’s out there, but it’s basely false. And it kind of demeans me as a woman because the idea is that the only reason I’m doing this is because my husband put me up to it.”
