Don Eberly, the former Bush administration official, released a letter Friday in which he says he is exploring a run for the 16th Congressional District next year against incumbent Republican Joe Pitts.


The key issue is likely to be Pitts’ pledge when he first ran for the 16th in 2005 that he would serve only five terms in Congress.


Nearly four years ago, Pitts said he was going to break that pledge. He is expected to run for his sixth term in 2006.


“My deep conviction is that breaking a pledge to limit one’s service deserves deep, broad debate involving the people themselves and not merely party officials,” Eberly wrote in his letter.


“It was to the people, and not merely party activists and donors, that Congressman Pitts made this pledge ... and thus it is directly to the people that he must take his decision to break his commitment.”


Pitts couldn’t be reached for comment Saturday.


Democrat Lois Herr, who challenged Pitts two years ago, already has announced she will run again.


Eberly, who lives in East Hempfield Township, has been sounding out local Republicans about the possibility of a candidacy for some time. He said Friday that he hasn’t set a timetable for making a final decision on the race.


“We will know soon enough what the people think,” he said.


Setting limits


Pitts won the 16th District, which now covers all of Lancaster County, Pitts’ home turf in southern Chester County and parts of Berks County, after former Congressman Bob Walker decided in 1995 to retire.


At the time, term limits were a hot issue in Republican politics. Pitts said he would limit himself to five two-year terms.


But in 2002, Pitts said he had changed his mind: “I no longer think term limits are a good idea. I don’t know how long I’m going to serve. But I’m not going to bind myself with a self-imposed deadline.”


Eberly said that’s troublesome.


“That Joe Pitts is a good and decent man who has served the district well is not the issue,” he wrote in his letter. “Not at all. What is the issue is that he made a commitment to the people 10 years ago to limit his term of service.


“Now, basic public integrity is at stake in how the breaking of this pledge is handled. I am troubled that ’06 could come and go without the full public debate this matter deserves.”


If Eberly decides to run, the county GOP would have at least three contested races in the May primary.


State Rep. Gibson C. Armstrong faces a Republican challenger, Bryan Cutler, in the 100th House district, and state committeeman John Bear has announced his own run for the 97th state House seat held by Rep. Roy Baldwin.


County Prothonotary Randall Wenger also is considering a run against state Rep. Tom Creighton in the 37th House district.


Part of the reason for Pitts’ term-limit pledge was a turf issue involving the counties in the 16th. In 1996, two-thirds of Lancaster County and one-third of Chester were in the district.


Republican Party sources have said there was an unofficial deal struck that Lancaster County Republicans would support Pitts in exchange for a limit on his service, and that after Pitts stepped down, a Lancaster County Republican would get party backing for a run.


As the largest chunk of voters in the 16th District, Lancaster County carries the greatest weight in candidate selection. Pitts has spent plenty of political capital in building relationships and support in the Lancaster County GOP.


Political observers thought the underlying reason for Pitts’ 2002 announcement that he was going to scrap the limit was to get it on the record well in advance of a potential sixth term, which would serve to negate some of its news value during any 2006 campaign.


Eberly said in his letter, though, that the issue needs to be aired in public.


“I continue to hope that Congressman Pitts decides to honor the commitment he made to the people 10 years ago,” he said.


Back from Baghdad


Eberly recently left the Bush administration after four years. He was deputy assistant to the president in 2001-02 and is considered one of the architects of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which encourages faith-based organizations to become involved in delivering social services.


Following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Eberly was among the first civilians to arrive in Baghdad to begin rebuilding societal institutions. As a senior ministry adviser, he helped to reconstruct the Ministry of Youth and Sport and the Iraqi Olympic Committee, formerly fiefdoms of Saddam Hussein’s eldest son, Uday.


After returning home, he was director of social policy and private assistance for Iraq at the Pentagon and State Department, senior counselor for international civil society at USAID and director of private sector outreach and coordination for tsunami reconstruction at the State Department.


Eberly also was an aide in the Reagan White House and a “social entrepreneur,” founding or co-founding nonprofits such as the Commonwealth Foundation, the National Fatherhood Initiative and the Civil Society Project. He has written extensively on character, culture and society; one of his books, “Building a Community of Citizens: Civil Society in the 21st Century,” has been published in Arabic. Now in private consulting and speaking on international development issues, Eberly is married to Sheryl Eberly, a business consultant, author and lecturer on etiquette. They have three children.


He said his background in Lancaster County Anabaptist culture is contributing to his concern about Pitts’ term-limit promise.


“As a boy attending Mennonite Sunday school and working on Amish farms, I had drilled into my character the foundational value that ‘my word is my bond,’ ” he wrote. “That’s an elementary ethical principle that has profound social consequences. While Lancaster County is rapidly changing, being a person of your word is one of those traditional moral values that we should all struggle hard to preserve in this unique and historic place we call home.”