By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: Is the race this November for three seats on the oldest and most corrupt court in America – the Pennsylvania Supreme – even more important than last year’s Governor contest?
A simple “Yes” and a more complex “No” could be appropriate.
Yes, because in a government supposedly maintained by three equal branches, the judiciary has the last word. Two recent examples come to mind.
A decidedly Republican legislature handed fellow GOP Governor Tom Corbett legislation that would make it harder for poor and elderly (mostly Democrats!) to vote. Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives Mike Turzai bragged the abrupt change in the law would “hand Pennsylvania to Mitt Romney” in 2012 over President Obama.
By sheer luck, the practice of case rotation put the appeal in the court of one of the very few Democrat appellate judges who tossed out the law.
Democrats were not so fortunate in the appeal of the heavily Gerrymandered boundaries for both Federal and State legislative offices. The 10-year re-apportionment plan conceived by Republicans, then pushed through a Republican legislature and, finally, a Republican Governor signed it into law.
A Republican Supreme Court upheld the plan on Democrat appeal. Because of these carefully drawn boundaries, Republicans hold a 13-5 edge in Congressional seats and last year increased their margins in both state houses. At the same time, Corbett, trying to win re-election, got hammered.
Explaining why ballots cast by 8 p.m., 16 days out, may be meaningless is not so simple.
The “Boys-will-be-Boys” scandal dealing with pornographic emails appears to deal more with Republican judges, prosecutors and other court personnel. The Republican-controlled Supreme Court (3-2 with two vacancies) did not mount a defense when former Democrat member Seamus McCaffery resigned last year after he was nailed with pornography on his computers.
However, when Michael Eakin, former Cumberland County prosecutor, former head of the District Attorneys Association, known practical jokester with sexist leanings and current Republican Supreme Court justice was snared in the same email scandal, his court mounted a campaign to get his accuser out of office.
Kathleen Kane, first woman and first Democrat elected State Attorney General, discovered the emails, believed to number about 4,000. Her office uncovered them while investigating her predecessor Tom Corbett for “slow-walking” the case against Jerry Sandusky for molesting young men in and around Penn State.
Risa Ventri Ferman, Montgomery County Republican District Attorney, running for judge has charged Kane with crimes related to an accusation that she leaked grand jury information. Not wanting to let this play out in the courts, the Supremes hope to force Kane to resign by suspending her law license.
Democrat leaders have joined in the braying to force Kane from office, but have no position on Justice Eakin. Even Democrat Governor Tom Wolf calls for Kane’s resignation but is mum on Eakin.
Bottom Line: A slight nod to Supreme Court candidates appearing on the Democrat ballot this year, based on what is apparent to the average voter. Dem candidate David Wecht is the only candidate to put forth a detailed plan to restore integrity to the scandal-ridden court. The Republican State Committee endorsed Anne Covey who won the primary even after the Pennsylvania Bar Association refused to give her a recommendation.
Paul Panepinto became the seventh candidate when he filed as an independent. He may get more than the usual number of votes for a minor candidate because both major parties have failed to do their part to maintain integrity of the courts.
Leaders and power brokers hope we will continue to screw up at elections for the PA courts. The tarnish will lead to appointment of all judges . . . by them, of course.
