Seven seek 3 seats on Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Anne Covey, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania Supreme Court, speaks during an Oct. 14 debate at Widener University’s Commonwealth Law School in Harrisburg.
Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Christine Donohue, a Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania Supreme Court, speaks during an Oct. 14 debate at Widener University’s Commonwealth Law School in Harrisburg.
Philadelphia Judge Kevin Dougherty, a Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania Supreme Court, speaks during an Oct. 14 debate at Widener University’s Commonwealth Law School in Harrisburg.
Adams County, Pa., Judge Mike George, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania Supreme Court, speaks during an Oct. 14 debate at Widener University’s Commonwealth Law School in Harrisburg.
Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Judy Olson, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania Supreme Court, speaks during an Oct. 14 debate at Widener University’s Commonwealth Law School in Harrisburg.
Philadelphia Judge Paul Panepinto, an independent candidate for Pennsylvania Supreme Court, speaks during an Oct. 14 debate at Widener University’s Commonwealth Law School in Harrisburg.
Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge David Wecht, a Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania Supreme Court, speaks during an Oct. 14 debate at Widener University’s Commonwealth Law School in Harrisburg.
HARRISBURG – Pledging to restore integrity on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court while shattering records for campaign spending, seven judges are vying for an unprecedented three open seats in the Nov. 3 election.
Those candidates and six others eliminated in the May primary raised $10.5 million and spent $8.3 million through Monday. They have stepped up their efforts in a battle increasingly dominated by TV attack ads, such as those aired by Pennsylvanians for Judicial Reform, an in-state political committee that supports Democrats, and the Washington-based Republican State Leadership Committee on the opposite side.
Between Jan. 1 and today, Supreme Court candidates spent roughly $3.5 million to air ads on broadcast television in Pennsylvania, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of political advertising data from Kantar Media/CMAG, a media tracking firm.
Also, Pennsylvanians for Judicial Reform, which aired attack ads against the three Republican candidates earlier this month, spent about $350,000 for 300 airings, the analysis shows.
Among the candidates, the biggest spender was Democrat Kevin Dougherty, who paid roughly $1.3 million for 2,753 airings of his campaign ads during the period, the analysis showed.
Two of the vacancies on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court resulted from the resignations of disgraced former justices – a Republican convicted of using her taxpayer-paid staff to do political work and a Democrat implicated in a pornographic email scandal. The other open seat belonged to former Chief Justice Ronald Castille, who was forced to step down last year after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70.
Four of the candidates sit on the state’s two intermediate appellate courts and the others are county judges. All seven were evaluated by the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Judicial Evaluation Commission and assigned one of three ratings: highly recommended, recommended or not recommended.
The candidates appeared together in only one general-election debate – on Oct. 14 in Harrisburg.
Sketches of the candidates are below:
At the Supreme Court candidates’ debate, Covey didn’t bring up her status as the only one with a “not recommended” rating from the bar panel, but later she played down its significance.
“The PBA admitted I am a good judge; they criticized me for exercising my right to free speech,” the Commonwealth Court judge said through her campaign spokesman last week.
In issuing the rating shortly after the Republican State Committee endorsed Covey, the panel said during her 2011 campaign for her present post she violated a signed pledge not to run misleading ads. Covey publicly protested the action, but the panel stood by its decision.
Covey, 55, of Bucks County, was elected to the state bench in 2011. Previously, she practiced law for more than 20 years, specializing in labor and employment cases, including a decade as a member of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. She holds a law degree from Widener University Law School.
Her public profile was elevated by her handling of a lawsuit stemming from the Jerry Sandusky child-sex abuse scandal at Penn State that was settled after the NCAA agreed in January to abandon the last of the sanctions it had imposed on the university.
As of today, Covey’s campaign had raised $744,000 and she had $359,000 on hand.
Donohue had nearly three decades of experience as a trial lawyer and litigator for some of Pittsburgh’s leading law firms by the time she was elected to the state Superior Court in 2007.
Donohue, 62, also served on state panels that oversee allegations of misconduct by judges and lawyers – the Judicial Conduct Board and Court of Judicial Discipline, which investigate and decide complaints involving judges, and the Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board, which handles complaints against lawyers.
A Democrat, Donohue said she’s never seen a case decided on the basis of political affiliation: “The minute that you’re sworn in as a judge, your partisan politics are gone,” she said in the debate.
The bar panel awarded the Pittsburgh resident a “highly recommended” rating.
The daughter of a coal miner and a seamstress from northeastern Pennsylvania, Donohue graduated from Duquesne University Law School. As a judge on the state’s main mid-level appellate court, she has issued written decisions in more than 2,000 cases over the past seven years.
As of today, Donohue’s campaign had raised $1.8 million and she had $495,000 on hand.
Philadelphia Judge Dougherty remains the campaign’s top overall fundraiser, thanks largely to hefty contributions from organized labor.
Dougherty, who oversees the trial division of Philadelphia’s sprawling court system, has spent most of his 14-year judicial career dealing with troubled juveniles and families in the family division.
The Democrat received help getting on the Philadelphia bench from Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican who appointed him to fill a vacancy in 2001. Dougherty, 55, won the first of two 10-year terms later that year.
Much of the campaign money flowing to Dougherty comes from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ Philadelphia local, where his politically connected brother John is the business manager, and from other unions and trial lawyers who have helped all three Democratic candidates.
A 1988 graduate of Antioch Law School in Washington, Dougherty received a state bar panel rating of “recommended.”
Dougherty said the high court needs to get past its scandals: “It is time for closure and the election of three new justices will do exactly that.”
As of today, Dougherty’s campaign had raised $3.6 million and he had $651,000 on hand.
George, who has spent his 30-year legal career in rural Adams County, is hoping to surprise the pessimists who doubt his prospect of getting elected to Pennsylvania’s highest court.
The soft-spoken judge has provided a couple surprises already.
When the Republican State Committee settled a contested vote for the party’s endorsements for three open seats, the 56-year-old George not only won an endorsement but also the largest number of votes.
In March, he emerged as the top GOP fundraiser after a businessman friend contributed $500,000 and the other Republican candidates are still trying to match his war chest.
George has been an Adams County judge since 2002. He holds a law degree from Dickinson Law School, previously served as Adams County district attorney for five years and was in private law practice for 11 years before that. He received a “recommended” rating from the bar panel.
As of today, George’s campaign had raised $751,000 and he had $185,000 on hand.
Superior Court Judge Olson hasn’t entirely jettisoned the “Judge Judy” nickname her supporters adopted in the primary. There are nods to the popular, sarcastic TV jurist in Olson’s campaign website.
But the Republican is no amateur. She spent more than two decade as a private lawyer specializing in complex commercial litigation and sits on the state’s main intermediate appellate court.
“This election is very simple. It boils down to two things: experience and character,” she said at the Harrisburg debate.
Olson, who received a “highly recommended” rating from the bar panel, spent 24 years working for a succession of three Pittsburgh law firms.
In 2008, Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell appointed her to fill a temporary vacancy on the Allegheny County Court. She was elected to the appellate bench in 2009.
Olson, 58, holds a law degree from Duquesne University Law School.
As of today, Olson’s campaign had raised $447,000 and she had $258,000 on hand.
Panepinto, a Philadelphia judge for 25 years, has tried three times to climb the judicial ladder but every campaign ended in the same way: defeat in a GOP primary.
So the 66-year-old abandoned the Republican Party and is running for state Supreme Court as an independent. He collected more than 28,000 signatures to get his name on the general-election ballot and put up $200,000 of his own money in the hope that his luck will turn around.
“I’m an independent candidate seeking the support of all the voters of Pennsylvania, not because of a party label but because I believe in justice above politics,” he said at a Harrisburg debate earlier this month.
Fresh out of Widener University’s Delaware Law School in 1977, Panepinto worked as an attorney in the city’s family court for 13 years before Gov. Robert P. Casey appointed him to fill a vacant judgeship on the Philadelphia bench. He also served four years on the state Court of Judicial Discipline, which oversees the conduct of state judges, and has a master’s degree in political science from Villanova University.
As of today, Panepinto’s campaign had raised $222,500 and he had $154,000 on hand.
Wecht boasts that while the other candidates talk about restoring integrity and ethics to the state’s high court, he’s the only one with a concrete plan for doing so.
The Democrat’s proposal would ban gifts to judges, tighten anti-nepotism policies, allow court proceedings to be telecast, mandate ethics training for judicial candidates and require judges asked to recuse themselves to explain their decision on the record.
Pennsylvanians “are entitled to justices who will focus on law and stop the focus on power politics and hyper management control,” he said in the debate.
Wecht, 53, was elected to the state Superior Court in 2011 after nine years as an Allegheny County judge. Before that, he served as the county’s elected register of wills and clerk of orphans’ court from 1998 to 2003.
The son of nationally prominent former medical examiner Cyril Wecht, he was educated at Yale and received his law degree in 1987.
Wecht was rated “highly recommended” by the bar panel.
As of today, Wecht’s campaign had raised $2.9 million and he had $796,000 on hand.