Totalitarian Pennsylvania Update.

Well, well, well...The first shoe has dropped...

Senator Noah Wenger retiring after 30 years in Harrisburg

Senator Wenger is a gentleman and mostly conservative. But the pay raise fiasco proved it was time for him to go. If only more pols were as reasonable...

Wenger, 71, of Stevens, is the ultimate statesman, his peers say. He’s someone who has led quietly but commandingly, someone who knows how to sit down, work respectfully with those who don’t agree with him and get things done.

“When Noah Wenger spoke, everyone listened,” says the state Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer, a Blair County Republican.

“He has the utmost respect of the members of his caucus and those on other side of aisle,” Jubelirer says.

Says state Sen. Gibson Armstrong, Republican of Refton: “He is always a gentleman. To me, he’s an ideal senator. It’s been a delight and a joy serving with him.”

State Sen. David “Chip” Brightbill of Lebanon, the Senate GOP leader, says, “He is not a man who is flamboyant but he was always quiet, direct and effective.

“You know if Noah took the bit on something, it was going to get done.”

A former farmer, Wenger was elected to the state House in 1976 and then went to the state Senate in 1982. He will retire at the end of this year.

Wenger says he decided to step down to spend more time with his wife, Barbara, three daughters and seven grandchildren, who live out of the state. He and his wife live in the 1796 house on the 107-acre farm they bought from his parents in 1974. He leases the land to a neighbor.

“Maybe it’s time to do some other things,” he says.

One Republican and one Democrat have said they will seek Wenger’s seat, and two other Republicans said today they are considering it.

Wenger first got interested in state government after he became president of the Lancaster County Farmer’s Association and had some contact with state issues.

When his state representative announced he was retiring, Wenger recalls, “I said to Barbara, ‘I think I would like to run for that office.’ I thought she would say, ‘If you do that, I’m going to divorce you.’ She surprised me. She said, ‘Well, if you’d like to do that, why don’t you give it a try?’ I still don’t know how I got elected. I had no political experience.”

Not only did he get elected, he got re-elected over the next 30 years. He only had one primary challenge, during his very first election.

Wenger was a leader on farming issues during his time in the Legislature, say his peers.