State Rep. Randy Vulakovich is getting a chance to replace another disgraced North Hills state politician, while former congresswoman Melissa Hart's political career has suffered another stinging blow.

More than 80 Allegheny and Butler county Republican officials met at a Cranberry hotel Saturday morning to pick their nominee for the state Senate seat formerly held by Jane Orie of McCandless, who was sentenced June 4 on public corruption charges. After four rounds of votes, three hours and speeches by 10 candidates, Mr. Vulakovich, of Shaler, was the party's pick.

Ms. Hart, from Bradford Woods, had been working party officials for weeks. Mr. Vulakovich, an ally of House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, had entered the intraparty race just a week before. He will now face Democratic nominee Sharon Brown, a health care consultant from McCandless, in the special 40th District election Aug. 7.

"People are looking so much toward government, and the things we need to do to just correct our course we've been following here for a long time," an emotional Mr. Vulakovich said after the vote. "It certainly hasn't gotten us to the right spot."

Orie's name was hardly mentioned in the three-hour meeting.

Special elections in Pennsylvania do not afford enough time to pick nominees through primaries so the choices are left to the Democratic and Republican party machinery instead.

Republicans picked 81 conferees from the 40th District, making 42 votes -- a majority plus one -- needed to win the nomination. On the first ballot Mr. Vulakovich won 29 votes to Ms. Hart's 18, with the rest to several other candidates. On the third ballot, he was one short of winning. By the fourth he bested Ms. Hart 48 votes to 33.

The balloting had more irony than a smelting plant. Orie bested Mr. Turzai and Jeff Habay, a state representative from Shaler at the time, in a similar conferee vote in 2001 to replace Ms. Hart in the Senate seat after she moved on to the U.S. House of Representatives. The same year, Mr. Turzai won Orie's former state House seat. Five years later, Mr. Habay was sentenced on public corruption charges, leading Mr. Vulakovich, a 27-year Shaler police veteran, to run to replace him. On Saturday, with Mr. Turzai's help, he beat Ms. Hart, who was running for office for the first time since losing her congressional seat to U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire in 2006.

Ms. Hart's political career started in 1990 when she beat an incumbent Democrat to join the state Senate and won a reputation for being a tough-talking Harrisburg reformer. On Saturday, she made the case to GOP conferees that she had the best government and campaign credentials for the job, and did so in a typically blunt manner.

"I was not asked by political bosses to run for this," she said.

Called "Officer V" when working a beat in Shaler, Mr. Vulakovich, 62, talked about his police experience and his clean ethics record, which is noted for refusing per-diems and a state-owned car and posting his office expenses on his district website.

"Keeping your trust is my most important responsibility," he told party officials.

With his past police work and replacement of Habay, he "can instill faith back in government. That's what happened today," said Jay Hagerman, vice chairman of the Hampton GOP committee.

Others saw him as the strongest GOP candidate for the district over the long term. The latest, unapproved legislative lines for the 40th District would create a faceoff in 2014 between a Republican North Hills candidate and state Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park.

"He can siphon off Democrats in Shaler and other Democratic areas and that puts him in the stronger position," said Scott Brady of Ross, a candidate for the party nod Saturday who bowed out to support Mr. Vulakovich.

Many party voters weren't swayed Saturday by either of two leading candidates, giving a good portion of votes in early rounds to former Navy SEAL Matt Shipley of McCandless, who lectures on the Constitution to conservative audiences. Other candidates included Mr. Brady; Kim Nagel of Zelienople; Chris Abernethy of Allison Park; Karen Shaheen of McCandless; Doug Austin of Gibsonia; Jeff Meyer of Ross; and Allegheny County Councilman Matt Drozd, who withdrew before voting started.

The vote exposed some rifts among North Hills Republicans that could resurface again soon: Should Mr. Vulakovich win the Aug. 7 special election, committee members will have to meet again to pick a candidate to fill his 30th District House seat. One of them is Hart supporter Mike McMullen of Hampton, who said he would "seriously consider" a run.

Ms. Hart left the hotel lobby seconds after the final vote and said later that the results did not hurt her.

"I got into this because I am as civically interested as I've always been," she said.

First Published: June 17, 2012, 4:00 a.m.
Updated: June 17, 2012, 4:04 a.m.