{"id":301222,"date":"2026-10-07T01:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T01:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/301222\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T01:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T01:20:08","slug":"pennsylvania-house-district-12-candidates-discuss-key-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/301222\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania House District 12 candidates discuss key issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Carlos<\/a>CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014<\/p>\n

Democrat Brandon Dukes and Republican Scott Timko are going head to head again in November, after Dukes defeated Timko in a special election<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n

Each has about a month left to win over voters, and each shared their plans for Pennsylvania House District 12 in Butler County.<\/p>\n

Both candidates agreed on the importance of finishing the Route 228 project, which intersects with Route 8 and Route 19 and has been under construction for years.<\/p>\n

“We need to bring resources back here to this district. The 228 corridor is something that’s on everyone’s mind. That’s largely finished, and a lot of money has already been spent and raised and allocated to that, but we need to keep working on it,” Timko said. <\/p>\n

Dukes said, “We are having a policy committee hearing coming out here in October with the transportation secretary and with all the local elected officials to discuss, to talk about what do we need to do funding-wise, work-wise, to get this final portion of Route 228 finished?”<\/p>\n

Dukes emphasized his commitment to completing the project by the end of his first term if elected, while Timko highlighted the need for responsible growth in the district once the construction is finished to ensure proper infrastructure is in place. <\/p>\n

When asked about voter concerns, Dukes said, “They were worried about public funding being cut from the schools. Another thing was the traffic up in Cranberry, Route 228, to be specific, and people who live in the district know. That was probably the top two issues that people spoke about, and a few data centers was another issue people had concerns about.”<\/p>\n

Timko said, “What they need is to be able to get from one side of Cranberry to the other in less than 20 minutes. That comes from too much growth, too much congestion, and sometimes it’s a cart before the horse.” <\/p>\n

Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 also asked both candidates their stance on abortion. Dukes said, “I am pro-choice. I believe it is a woman’s right to choose. I believe abortion is safe and legal in Pennsylvania for now, and I feel like we need to keep it that way.” <\/p>\n

Timko said, “If you think for one second I would support late-term abortion other than for the health of the mother, the mother’s life is in danger, just because you change your mind, I think that’s horrific.” <\/p>\n

Regarding the state of education in Pennsylvania, Dukes said, “I don’t want our public school dollars to go to these charter schools or private schools or online schools. They charge tuition. They charge fees. I’m not sure why they would need the public dollars.” <\/p>\n

Timko said, “I’m firmly of the belief that you can give people choices in their education and have the best of both worlds. We can have great public schools in addition to school choice, so I strongly favor that. I think parents should be able to directly decide how their kids are going to be educated.” <\/p>\n

On the topic of data centers, Dukes said, “I do believe they need to be regulated. They’re so new. They’re popping up like weeds. I believe the power needs to be back in with the local municipalities who currently hold that authority.” <\/p>\n

Timko said, “On a personal level, I don’t want to live next to a data center. On a professional level, we certainly want them in the United States. And as a representative, it’s my responsibility to make sure that those questions are answered in a reasoned, measured, patient approach until we get the answers right, and not just, ‘let’s just build them,’ which is what the Democrats and my opponent wants to do right now.”<\/p>\n

As prices continue to rise for things like utilities, gas and groceries, each candidate had their own take on addressing affordability, Dukes said, “I’m supportive of the minimum wage hike that was passed in the House. But it’s currently sitting in the Senate right now, where it’s not going to go anywhere unless we flip it. I do think utilities are going up across the country, let alone here in the commonwealth, and we need to make sure these companies aren’t price-gouging and making sure that they’re establishing fair prices across the country and everything like that.” <\/p>\n

Timko said, “If we want to tackle affordability, we need to take advantage of the resources that Pennsylvania has to offer, and our number one resource is energy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014 Democrat Brandon Dukes and Republican Scott Timko are going head to head again in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10483,21193,113202,4112,15120,2116,124052,10151,227,15122,28,30,9116,113203,29,523,4582,13459,5607,521,233,124053,124055,13987,93058,124054],"class_list":["post-301222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-abortion","tag-affordability","tag-brandon-dukes","tag-butler-county","tag-candidate","tag-data-centers","tag-district-12","tag-dukes","tag-education","tag-issue","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-house","tag-pennsylvania-house-district","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-people","tag-project","tag-resource","tag-route","tag-school","tag-schools","tag-scott-timko","tag-several-topic","tag-thing","tag-timko","tag-voter-concern"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}