By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: Control of state government is up for grabs at the November election. The campaign promises to be well funded with outside money and bloody.
Focus is on three vacancies on the state supreme court. Because the judicial branch of government often has the last word, some political pundits believe this year’s election is more important than last year’s gubernatorial battle.
Both chambers of the state’s General Assembly remain solidly in Republican hands.
Thanks to gerrymandering in the reapportionment process after the 2010 census, GOP control of the legislature is likely to remain through the next decade.
Democrat Tom Wolf’s decisive victory at the 2014 election prevented incumbent Tom Corbett from winning a second four-year term and ended Republican control of all three branches of government. Democrat campaign ineptness erases a million voter registration surplus.
The election of three judges on a seven-person Supreme Court is important, but the effect may not be lasting. The three winners at the 2015 general election will join four sitting judges that are 2-2 in political party registration. Therefore, a sweep by either side in November would give that party a decisive 5-2 edge going forward.
Such a victory, in this case, may be short-lived because three of the current four sitting judges reach mandatory retirement age of 70 in the next four years. Their replacements could change partisan control again and again.
Currently the state Supreme Court has five sitting members. Mandatory retirement created one vacancy and resignations following scandals resulted in the other two. Gov. Corbett filled one of the vacancies by appointing Republican Correale Stevens, a Luzerne County jurist.
The GOP state committee, however, continued to dump on their former Governor. State committee members refused to endorse Stevens for re-election and he finished last of the six GOP candidates in this past primary.
Instead, the GOP state committee endorsed three other candidates. Judy Olson, from Allegheny County, was highly recommended by the Pennsylvania Bar Association and Mike George, Adams County, received a “recommended” rating.
The Republican state committee thumbed its collective nose at PBA, however, by endorsing Anne Covey, Bucks County, who was “not recommended” by the Bar.
All three won the Republican primary, handily. Even Rebecca Warren, Montour County, garnered more votes than Justice Stevens, despite carrying a PBA rejection tag.
A different picture emerges from the Democrat primary. The Bar rejected none of that party’s half dozen candidates outright. Three were highly recommended and two of those – David Wecht and Christine Donohue, both from Allegheny County, will be on the fall ballot.
They join Kevin Dougherty from Philadelphia. Dougherty and Wecht won endorsements from state Democratic committee. That party’s rules require a super majority for endorsement and Donohue only missed the two-thirds requirement by about a dozen votes.
Did the major political parties make extra effort to ensure diversity on the Supreme Court? Possibly for women, not at all for minorities.
In January of 2016, the Supremes could field a court of four women and three men.
The GOP nominated two women and Democrat voters selected one. If all three win in the fall, they would join a leftover court of three men and one woman. The three men are the jurists who reach the mandatory retirement age in the next four years.
Neither Party made an effort for diversity on the Court. Cheryl Allen, Allegheny County, was highly recommended by the Bar but was not endorsed by GOP state committee. Dwayne Woodruff, also an Allegheny jurist and former Pittsburgh Steeler, failed to win a Democrat slot. Both are Afro-Americans.
(Woodruff would not have been the first pro footballer to be a Supreme Court justice. Alan C. Page, a Hall of Fame defensive tackle for the Vikings, has been on Minnesota’s highest court for two decades.)
Bottom Line: The fall judicial race will be Gov. Wolf’s first test as a party leader. Success can enhance his role in the Presidential campaign next year. Failure could result in some of his programs getting reversed or gutted by a Republican Court.
EDITOR: Then there was Byron White,college football and pro-halfback and later Supreme Court Justice
