Joseph Sabino Mistick: We need more leaders like Tony DeLuca

When Aristotle described politicians as craftsmen — creating paths to a “good life” for the people they serve — he could have been describing Penn Hills state Rep. Tony DeLuca, who died last week at 85. DeLuca was in his 39th year in the Pennsylvania Legislature, representing Penn Hills, Verona and much of Plum Borough and Oakmont.

Until his final days, Tony traveled the turnpike between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg nearly every week, his car a rolling office as he worked the phone to muster support for a favored bill or to get the bureaucracy to bend to the needs of a citizen. He remained a man of the people until the very end.

I met Tony in the early 1970s when we attended Pitt’s Local Government Academy for newly elected councilmen — Tony in Penn Hills and me in East McKeesport. Tony had more than a decade on me, but he loved telling everybody that we went to school together, just to throw them off balance. But Tony never joked about learning how to use the levers of government for his community.

As Republican Speaker of the House Brian Cutler said about the Democratic veteran of many legislative battles, Tony was “revered and respected by his colleagues and all Pennsylvanians.” Cutler added that Tony’s “efforts on behalf of all Pennsylvanians, and in particular children, as the Democratic chair of the House Insurance Committee will have an impact for many years to come.”

Tony was gregariously Italian American and colorful in his manner and dress, appearing on the House floor in blazers so brightly colored that Democratic Leader Frank Dermody once told him the caucus would have to buy sunglasses for the members if he kept it up. Tony relished that.

His summer picnics in his district were community celebrations. He was all about family, extending that notion beyond his own bloodline to many of those who lived in his district. And many of his constituents saw him as family, too.

In 2011, the Reapportionment Commission decided to take a few predominantly Black voter precincts from Tony’s suburban district and add them to an adjacent district in the City of Pittsburgh. Within days, the evening news showed Tony’s African American constituents packed into a church hall, chanting, “We want Tony! We want Tony!” The commission reversed itself.

We are surrounded now by new politicians on the right and left, many of whom have come to the public arena with big ideas, but no idea how to get things done. It is hard work, it takes years and it requires a willingness to work with others, often for compromise. We don’t have many politicians like that anymore.

Shortly after Tony was elected to the House, we had a little business to discuss and we agreed to meet that night at his family’s shop, DeLuca’s Meat Market on Larimer Avenue in East Liberty. The business was closed, and when I entered, Tony was making 10 pounds of DeLuca’s famous hot sausage for a pal.

I could not resist sharing a quote that is often attributed to Otto von Bismarck, telling him, “One should never see how laws or sausages are made.”

And we both had a good laugh when I said, “Tony, you’re the only guy I know who does both well.”