Supreme Court Races Only The Start Of Turnover On The Bench
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The looming general-election campaign for three open seats on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court could flip the partisan scales, but whatever happens will be only the prelude to a sea change on the state's top bench.
Over the next three years, all but one of the four sitting justices will be forced to vacate their seats as they reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 - Chief Justice Thomas Saylor in 2016, Justice Max Baer in 2017 and Justice J. Michael Eakin in 2018.
By 2020, Justice Debra Todd, a Democrat from Allegheny County, will be the only holdover from the present court.
As Labor Day heralds the opening of the fall campaign, the unprecedented number of open seats could make the Nov. 3 election a political turning point for the seven-seat court with important political implications for the legislative redistricting that will follow the 2020 census.
If the Democrats win all three seats, the party would not only recapture a majority on the court for the first time in six years but lock it in until at least 2026 - assuming the likely scenario that voters retain Todd for a second 10-year term in 2017.
If all three Republican nominees win, the GOP would retain control of the court until at least 2018. Republicans also control both the House and Senate by comfortable margins.
If neither side takes all, the court's future partisan composition will be harder to predict.
"That puts a lot of pressure on us to do well in this election if we want to have a Supreme Court majority in 2022" to rule on redistricting challenges, said Rob Gleason, the state Republican Party chairman.
Marcel Groen, a Montgomery County lawyer who is expected to be elected this month as the next state Democratic Party chairman, agreed.
"This is potentially the most important election in 20 years because it will set the tone of what redistricting will look like," he said.
The Supreme Court candidates in both parties have stressed a desire to repair the high court's scandal-stained image following the resignations of a Republican justice convicted of corruption for using her state-paid staff to do political work and a Democratic justice implicated in a pornographic email scandal.
Those resignations left two open seats, one of which is being temporarily filled by interim Justice Correale Stevens, who was defeated in the primary in his bid for a full term. Castille's retirement in December created the third vacancy.
The seats will be awarded to the three top vote-getters among the seven candidates.
The Democratic nominees are Philadelphia Judge Kevin Dougherty and Superior Court judges David Wecht and Christine Donohue. The Republican nominees are Superior Court Judge Judy Olson, Commonwealth Court Judge Anne Covey and Adams County Judge Mike George. Paul Panepinto, a Philadelphia judge, is running as an independent.
Political strategists are bracing for a flood of campaign cash from outside interest groups and major in-state donors that refrained from making contributions in the crowded nomination battle in the May primary.
In the primary, 12 candidates raised about $5 million from the beginning of the year through June 8, including about $4 million raised by the six nominees, according to the latest campaign finance reports.
Sparse attendance at the polls is also a concern for both parties.
"It's going to be hard to motivate voters to turn out." said Lynn Marks, director of Philadelphia-based judicial reform group Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, citing the unusually small turnout in the hotly contested primary.
One wild card in making predictions about the court's future makeup is a proposed constitutional amendment increasing the mandatory retirement age for judges from 70 to 75. It passed the House and Senate two years ago and won a required reaffirmation vote in the House earlier this year and the Senate has until next year to follow suit, which would put the proposal out for statewide voter approval.
But it is too late to affect this year's election, said the sponsor, Rep. Kate Harper.
"I just think this is the way it ought to be," said Harper, R-Montgomery, a lawyer. "There are some jobs in this world in which experience and wisdom grow with age."
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