By Kevin Zwick
Staff Reporter
Capitolwire
HARRISBURG (Nov. 3) – In a stunning sweep, Democrats claimed all statewide judicial offices Tuesday, tilting the balance of the seven-seat state Supreme Court for most of the next decade.
Each Democratic candidate garnered more than 1 million votes, with their Republican opposition each coming up short – in some cases well short – of 900,000 votes, although about 5 percent of the state’s precincts had not yet reported.
Pennsylvania voters, enduring a multi-million dollar advertising onslaught of stuffed mailboxes and mostly negative TV ads, headed to the polls to pick Philadelphia Judge Kevin Dougherty and Superior Court judges David Wecht and Christine Donohue to fill three vacancies for at least the next eight years, unofficial results show.
The state Supreme Court election, with a historic three open seats, began earlier this year with more than a dozen candidates seeking a seat on the high court.
The highest vote getter for the Republicans was Superior Court Judge Judy Olson, who claimed about 876,535 as of midnight Wednesday, with about 94 percent of the state’s precincts reporting. Her total was approximately 175,000 votes shy of Donohue’s roughly 1.05 million votes.
The judicial election cycle also saw a historic amount of election spending. A group of court watchdog organizations said the Supreme Court race was the “costliest” in U.S. history.
The documented spending in the high court race as of Monday reached $15.9 million, passing the prior national record of $15.2 million set in a 2014 one-on-one race in Illinois, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, Justice at Stake and Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts. The previous spending record for a Supreme Court race in Pennsylvania was $10.5 million in 2007.
“This record for high spending is a national distinction Pennsylvanians never wanted to claim,” said Lynn Marks, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, a group that advocates for merit selection of state judges. “Expensive attack ads against judges bought and sold by special interest groups are no way to pick judges.”
The Democratic candidates raised the most funds throughout the entire election cycle, with Dougherty leading the trio with $3.8 million. Republican Anne Covey led the Republican candidates by raising nearly $925,500. Democratic-backing PACs also spent more on ads than ones that supported Republicans, the watchdog groups said.
Up against the background of recent scandals involving the court, themes of integrity and openness were carried throughout the election.
Two of the three vacancies were generated by scandals. Disgraced former Justice Joan Orie Melvin resigned from the court in 2013 after she was convicted in a public corruption case and former Justice Seamus McCaffery resigned last fall after being named in a much-publicized and continuing pornographic email scandal. Attorney General Kathleen Kane has continued to release controversial emails, placing scrutiny on sitting Justice Michael Eakin. The third vacancy occurred when former Chief Justice Ron Castille retired at the end of last year after hitting the the mandatory retirement age.
“In recent years, the people’s faith in our Supreme Court has been tested. I am confident that Judges Donohue, Dougherty, and Wecht will restore honor to our judicial system,” said Gov. Tom Wolf, who actively campaigned for the Democratic judicial candidates.
“For the second time in the last year, the people of Pennsylvania have spoken at the ballot box and sent Harrisburg a message that they want fairness and change,” Wolf said, referring to a House special election in Delaware County in August. “I hope those serving in state government have heard the message and will join me in fighting for change that benefits every Pennsylvanian.”
Democrats also won statewide races for a seat each on the 15-member Superior Court and the nine-member Commonwealth Court.
Philadelphia Judge Alice Beck Dubow defeated Northampton County Judge Emil Giordano for Superior Court, the state’s general appellate court that handles criminal and most civil appeals from the county courts.
And for Commonwealth Court – which processes civil cases filed against or by the state government, as well as appeals from county courts in cases involving state or local agencies – in a contest that featured two Pittsburgh lawyers, Michael Wojcik defeated Paul Lalley.
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EDITOR: We wonder whether the disbarment of Kathleen Kane and scandalous e-mails from Justice Keaton played a role in the landslide Democrat victory. The Media may well be out of step with the population, especially female, of the state.
I as a voter know that the charges against Kane are to cover for the misconduct of Fina when he was at the AG office. Also knew that Castille forced a Democrat to resign from the court but there is Eakin just hanging out guilty of the same but he will stay to the bitter end.
I also knew that if the Dems. control the PA Supreme Court it will be one way of putting an end to this Corbett crony nonsense going on wherein by prosecuting Kane they think that their misconduct in the the Attorney General’s office during Corbett’s reign of terror will never come to light.
Still wondering about that slam dunk case against the PSU administration and how the Sandusky case was “handled.”
New court, it is all going to come out, Kane will be vindicated.