Pennsylvania
Pa. primary election 2023: A complete guide to the candidates for Commonwealth and Superior Courts
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HARRISBURG — In Could, Democrats and Republicans will select their events’ candidates for 3 vacant seats on Commonwealth and Superior Courts. The winners will compete within the November basic election.
Pennsylvania’s two intermediate appellate courts have the ability to affirm or reverse selections made in decrease courts. Their rulings may be appealed to the state Supreme Courtroom, Pennsylvania’s courtroom of final resort.
The one that wins the open seat on Commonwealth Courtroom may assist form Pennsylvania’s legal guidelines on every little thing from elections to firearms, whereas the 2 candidates who win seats on Superior Courtroom may resolve the outcomes of high-profile legal instances. Judges on each courts are sometimes prime candidates to fill openings on the Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom.
The 2 intermediate appellate courts serve distinct roles within the commonwealth’s authorized system.
Commonwealth Courtroom presides over civil actions introduced by and towards the Pennsylvania state authorities and hears appeals primarily in instances involving state departments and native governments. Superior Courtroom handles legal, household, and civil instances which might be appealed by county Courts of Frequent Pleas.
Not all voters will be capable to take part within the upcoming judicial primaries, which will probably be held Could 16. Pennsylvania is one in every of 9 states that has closed primaries, which stop third-party and unaffiliated voters from collaborating in partisan elections. (Unaffiliated and third-party voters can, nonetheless, vote on poll questions, different referendums, and particular elections throughout a main.)
Pennsylvania is one in every of a handful of states that elect judges in partisan contests, which means candidates run below the banner of a political occasion, acquire endorsements, and lift cash.
There are a number of key variations between a judicial election and different political elections within the commonwealth, nonetheless. Potential judges can’t immediately ask for donations, although their marketing campaign committees can. In addition they can’t make guarantees that they’ll rule in sure methods.
As a result of judicial elections are likely to have comparatively low voter turnout, and since judges have much less direct contact with the general public than native representatives, occasion endorsements generally is a highly effective determinant of who wins a judicial main.
Rankings from the Pennsylvania Bar Affiliation may be equally essential. The bar ranks judicial candidates as “extremely really useful,” “really useful,” or “not really useful” primarily based on the candidate’s judicial document and interviews with a judicial analysis fee.
Commonwealth Courtroom
The nine-member Commonwealth Courtroom is the primary cease for a lot of high-profile instances.
Latest rulings embrace a 2022 choice that discovered the state’s mail voting regulation unconstitutional — a call later overruled by the state Supreme Courtroom — and a February opinion that discovered the state’s training funding system violated the rights of fogeys and college students in poorer districts.
Judges serve preliminary 10-year phrases, then face a nonpartisan retention vote, which often succeeds.
There may be one seat open on Commonwealth Courtroom this yr, and each events’ primaries have a number of candidates vying for the nomination. The courtroom presently has 5 judges who have been elected as Republicans and three elected as Democrats.
Democratic candidates
Bryan Neft
Neft is an legal professional primarily based in Mt. Lebanon who works in industrial litigation.
Neft beforehand ran for Superior Courtroom in 2021, in the end ending behind the 2 different candidates within the Democratic main.
A graduate of Boston College College of Legislation, Neft has predominantly spent his profession in non-public observe. He clerked for former Superior Courtroom Decide William Cercone in Pittsburgh from 1991 to 1995, drafting memorandums on civil and legal points.
Neft served as a committee member for the Mt. Lebanon Democratic Celebration from 2016 to 2020, when he resigned to run for Superior Courtroom. He was reappointed after his loss within the main however resigned once more in November 2022 for his present Superior Courtroom bid.
The Pennsylvania Bar Affiliation rated Neft as “really useful,” writing that friends considered him as “laborious working, sincere and dedicated to equal justice, equity and impartiality within the judicial system.”
Learn Neft’s solutions to the PBA questionnaire right here.
Matthew Wolf
Wolf is a decide on the Philadelphia Municipal Courtroom, the place he has served since 2018.
Previous to his election to the courtroom in 2017, Wolf ran a authorized observe primarily based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, that targeted on employment regulation and civil rights. In his PBA questionnaire, he famous that his shoppers included “many ladies” concerned in being pregnant discrimination, hostile work setting, and sexual harassment instances.
Wolf spent years within the U.S. Military Reserve, serving as an officer from 2003 to 2020 and deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq. After resigning his fee in 2020, he enlisted within the Pennsylvania Military Nationwide Guard.
The Pennsylvania Bar Affiliation rated Wolf as “really useful,” saying that his writing is “clear and concise,” and noting that he has a historical past of public service.
Learn Wolf’s solutions to the PBA questionnaire right here.
Republican candidates
Megan Martin
A Cumberland County resident and Widener College regulation faculty graduate, Martin is the previous parliamentarian of the state Senate and is endorsed by the state Republican Celebration within the main race for Commonwealth Courtroom.
Because the secretary-parliamentarian, Martin suggested the chamber’s presiding officer on tips on how to run flooring proceedings in accordance with the state structure, regulation, and chamber guidelines.
Earlier than becoming a member of the chamber, she served as a staffer after which an legal professional for former GOP Govs. Tom Ridge and Tom Corbett, as an legal professional for the U.S. Navy, and as a regulation clerk for a Lancaster County decide.
The state bar affiliation rated her as “really useful,” saying that Martin’s “substantial administrative regulation expertise will serve her nicely.”
Learn Martin’s solutions to the PBA questionnaire right here.
Joshua Prince
A Berks County lawyer and Widener College regulation faculty graduate, Prince runs a agency that focuses on gun-related litigation.
Prince has sued town of Harrisburg to dam the enforcement of previous gun legal guidelines, and sued the state and federal governments to dam bans on bump shares and partial firearm frames that lack figuring out data, which opponents have labeled “ghost weapons.”
He has the endorsement of a handful of conservative rank-and-file GOP lawmakers, county sheriffs, and gun rights teams, together with Firearms House owners In opposition to Crime.
In February, Prince attended a Susquehanna County Republicans occasion and posed for a bunch picture that included Frank Scavo, a former Republican legislative candidate who was sentenced to 60 days in jail for collaborating within the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol. GOP state Supreme Courtroom candidate Patricia McCullough was additionally within the picture.
Prince informed Highlight PA that he wasn’t conscious of Scavo’s background when he took the picture.
“It’s inconceivable to know everybody’s private background from a 1-minute interplay,” he mentioned.
Prince will not be really useful by the state bar affiliation, which discovered that he “lacks the depth and breadth of expertise and preparation essential to tackle the commanding position of decide on the Commonwealth Courtroom.”
In an e-mail, Prince mentioned he disagreed together with his score and pointed to the success of candidates who didn’t have the group’s blessing.
“I’ve confidence voters will as soon as once more see {that a} single organizational endorsement will not be the total measure of a candidate, and that they’ll base their choice on the totality of precise expertise, particularly within the courtroom,” Prince mentioned.
Learn Prince’s solutions to the PBA questionnaire right here.
Superior Courtroom
The 15-member Superior Courtroom handles all nongovernment-related legal and civil instances. Major voters will choose two candidates from their very own occasion; the 2 Democrats and the 2 Republicans with probably the most votes will transfer on to the November basic election.
The panel’s essential position is to assessment decrease courts’ verdicts. Notable latest selections embrace a 2019 opinion tossing out rapper Meek Mills’s conviction on drug and gun fees.
Judges serve preliminary 10-year phrases, then face nonpartisan retention votes, which often succeed.
There are two open seats on Superior Courtroom this yr. Its partisan make-up is presently cut up, with seven Democrats and 7 Republicans. The president decide of the courtroom is chosen via a vote by members of the Superior Courtroom and serves a five-year time period.
Democratic candidates
Jill Beck
Beck is a Pittsburgh-based legal professional who works in industrial litigation. She ran for Superior Courtroom in 2021 however was defeated within the main by Timika Lane.
Beck clerked for state Supreme Courtroom Justice Christine Donohue from 2016 to 2019, and for Donohue on Superior Courtroom from 2010 to 2015.
In her questionnaire for the Pennsylvania Bar Affiliation, Beck mentioned that in her time as a clerk on Superior Courtroom she drafted memoranda and printed opinions on practically 500 selections.
Beck has additionally labored at KidsVoice, a nonprofit company that advocates for kids within the baby welfare system in Allegheny County’s Juvenile Courtroom.
The state bar affiliation rated her “extremely really useful,” writing that Beck possesses “the very best mixture of authorized capacity, expertise and integrity.”
Learn Beck’s solutions to the PBA questionnaire right here.
Timika Lane
Lane has served as a Philadelphia Courtroom of Frequent Pleas decide since 2014.
Lane first ran for Superior Courtroom in 2021. She gained the first, beating Beck, however misplaced by 7 factors to Republican challenger Megan Sullivan.
Earlier than turning into a lawyer, Lane labored for 4 years as a public faculty trainer, then attended regulation faculty and spent a yr clerking for Decide Renée Cardwell Hughes within the Philadelphia Courtroom of Frequent Pleas.
She then spent a yr working primarily in non-public observe household regulation earlier than taking a job as an assistant public defender in Philadelphia from 2004 to 2009.
She additionally spent a number of years as authorized counsel for Democratic state Sen. Anthony Williams earlier than being elected to the Philadelphia Courtroom of Frequent Pleas in 2013. The trial courtroom hears appeals for civil, legal, and household issues.
The Pennsylvania Bar Affiliation rated Lane”extremely really useful,” saying that her “writing is well-reasoned, clear and concise.”
Learn Lane’s solutions to the PBA questionnaire right here.
Patrick Dugan
Dugan is a decide on the Philadelphia Municipal Courtroom, a trial courtroom the place civil and legal instances within the metropolis are first adjudicated. First appointed to the courtroom in 2007 by former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, Dugan was then elected to the courtroom in 2009 and retained in 2015. Dugan’s friends on the courtroom elected him president decide in 2019.
Dugan attended regulation faculty between two stints within the U.S. Military — first as an enlisted airborne infantryman within the Eighties after which as a civil affairs noncommissioned officer in Iraq and a decide advocate officer in Afghanistan. He held the rank of U.S. Military captain when he retired from the army in 2016.
In 2010, Dugan co-founded Philadelphia’s Veterans Courtroom, which handles instances through which present or former army members are charged with nonviolent misdemeanors. All judges who preside over the courtroom are veterans.
As of March 23, the Pennsylvania Bar Affiliation had not assigned Dugan a score.
Republican candidates
Maria Battista
A Clarion County resident who holds a regulation diploma from Ohio Northern College, Battista beforehand served as assistant basic counsel for the departments of Well being and State below former Govs. Tom Corbett, a Republican, and Tom Wolf, a Democrat. She additionally was a prosecutor in Franklin and Venango Counties, and was a contract specialist for the Division of Protection.
She has since left that job to run for workplace, in response to the Courier-Categorical, and now works as vp of state and federal contracting for The Decide Group, a Wayne-based consulting agency.
She is endorsed by the state Republican Celebration.
As of March 23, the Pennsylvania Bar Affiliation had not assigned Battista a score.
Harry Smail
Smail has been a Westmoreland County Frequent Pleas decide since former Republican Gov. Tom Corbett appointed him to the bench in 2014. Earlier than that, he was a personal observe legal professional who ran unsuccessfully for quite a few county workplaces. He acquired his regulation diploma from Duquesne College.
He’s endorsed by the state Republican Celebration. On its web site, the occasion factors to rulings Smail made in 2020 “that upheld important anti-fraud necessities for casting a mail-in poll.”
That yr, Smail dominated towards the Westmoreland County Board of Elections in a case introduced by a Republican candidate for state Senate in a particularly shut race.
He ordered the board to throw out 204 provisional ballots — these which might be forged when an individual’s registration can’t be instantly verified — it wished to rely. These 204 provisional ballots have been forged by individuals who have been wrongly informed by election staff that in addition they wanted to signal their precinct’s pollbook. By signing the e book, the voters as a substitute indicated they forged a poll utilizing a voting machine.
Smail dominated that the board of elections didn’t conduct due diligence in accepting these 204 votes with out “additional substantiating proof” that they hadn’t voted twice.
“Whereas the Courtroom is loath to impose the implications of a failure of the Board onto an harmless citizens … the courtroom should apply the provisions of the Elections Code persistently and as written by our legislature,” Smail wrote within the 12-page choice.
The bar rated Smail “really useful,” “primarily based on his in depth background, authorized capacity and temperament.”
Learn Smail’s solutions to the PBA questionnaire right here.
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Pennsylvania
Nov. 5 election too close to decide mail-in ballot issues, Pennsylvania Supreme Court says • Pennsylvania Capital-Star
In a pair of decisions published Saturday evening the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied requests to resolve questions about the commonwealth’s vote-by-mail law in the final few weeks before the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Dismissing a request by the voting rights groups to block the enforcement of a rule requiring mail-in ballots to bear a handwritten date on the return envelope, the Supreme Court said the risk of confusing voters with a change in voting rules was too great.
“This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election,” the unsigned order said.
Chief Justice Debra Todd filed a dissenting statement in which she argued that voters and election officials need guidance in the upcoming election.
“We ought to resolve this important constitutional question now, before ballots may be improperly rejected and voters disenfranchised,” Todd said.
The court also rejected a request by the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania to stop county election officials from allowing voters to remedy mistakes on their mail-in ballots that would cause them to be disqualified.
The flurry of weekend rulings exactly a month before Election Day leaves the rules in place during the April 23 primary unchanged.
That means voters casting ballots by mail in this election must complete the voter declaration on the outside of the return envelope by signing and dating it for their ballot to be counted.
Voters using mail-in ballots should also be certain to place the ballot in the unmarked secrecy envelope before placing it in the return envelope, as that is an error that can lead to a ballot being disqualified.
Counties where the boards of elections have adopted so-called “notice and cure” policies may notify voters of errors and allow them to fix their mistakes before polls close on Election Day. The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania this week published a guide to such policies in all 67 counties.
The court said the RNC and Pennsylvania GOP had demonstrated a lack of due diligence by failing to pursue the challenge to “notice and cure” policies earlier. The Republican organizations had asked the court to exercise its King’s Bench authority to hear the case without first litigating it in the lower courts, a power generally reserved for exceptionally urgent cases.
“King’s Bench jurisdiction will not be exercised where, as here, the alleged need for timely intervention is created by Petitioners’ own failure to proceed expeditiously and thus, the need for timely intervention has not been demonstrated,” the order said.
In a footnote, the court said the Republican parties had also raised the issue before the 2022 midterm election but the Commonwealth Court dismissed the case for a lack of jurisdiction.
“Three election cycles have since passed, and the Petitioners have not challenged any of the county notice and cure policies in a court of common pleas,” the order said.
Justice Kevin Brobson said in a separate statement that he agrees that it is too close to the election for the court to decide the question
“Deciding these questions at this point would, in my view, be highly disruptive to county election administration,” Brobson wrote, adding that it would be difficult for the court to hear evidence and testimony in such a short timeframe.
Earlier Saturday, the court granted an appeal by the RNC and the RPP challenging a Commonwealth Court ruling last month requiring election officials in Washington County to notify voters when their mail-in ballots are rejected and allow them to vote provisionally at their polling places on Election Day.
The Washington County board of elections had adopted a policy days before last April’s primary of marking ballots as “received” in the state ballot tracking system when they had actually been segregated due to a disqualifying error.
Act 77 of 2019 introduced changes to the Election Code, including allow voters to cast ballots by mail without an excuse for not going to the polls. Mistakes by voters completing their ballot packets have been the subject of challenges in every election since. A study estimated that more than 10,000 voters were disenfranchised in the primary election because of such errors.
Proceedings in several courts since 2020, when no-excuse mail voting was first an option, have established that the date on the outside of the envelopes serves no official purpose.
The Commonwealth Court ruled last month that the dating requirement violates the Pennsylvania Constitution because it serves no compelling reason for the government to infringe upon the charter’s guarantee of the right to vote.
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Pennsylvania
Photos: A visual look at Trump’s return to Pennsylvania for a rally at site of assassination attempt – WTOP News
BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — Thousands of supporters returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday to rally around Donald Trump at the…
BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — Thousands of supporters returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday to rally around Donald Trump at the same site where a gunman tried to assassinate him in July.
Trump’s campaign predicted that tens of thousands would attend the event, billed as a “tribute to the American spirit,” and hundreds were lining up as the sun rose. Speakers who took the stage ahead of the GOP nominee — who has characterized his return as a fulfillment of “an obligation” to Butler — recalled the details of the July 13 shooting, praised the former president’s courage and said God protected him that day, something Trump has also suggested about his surviving the attempt.
There were numerous references and tributes to Corey Comperatore, who died at the July rally as he shielded family members from gunfire. His fireman’s jacket was set up on display surrounded by flowers, an artist created a patriotic rendering of the former fire chief live on stage, and Comperatore’s sisters wiped tears from their eyes as their brother was honored from the stage.
A visibly heightened security presence surrounded the site, with men in camouflage uniforms stationed on roofs with large guns. The building from which shots were fired in July was completely obscured by tractor-trailers, a large grassy perimeter and a fence, featuring Trump’s image from the previous rally. Other tweaks included most bleacher seats being arranged at the sides, rather behind the stage.
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Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania school boards up window openings that allowed views into its gender-neutral bathrooms
What to Know
- A Pennsylvania school district has reversed course and boarded up window openings it recently installed that allowed people in a middle school hallway to peer into two gender-neutral-designated bathrooms.
- South Western School District Superintendent Jay Burkhart said Friday that the two windows were installed in recent weeks following an August vote by the district’s conservative-majority school board.
- The board president said the move was designed to monitor and prevent misbehavior.
- Such openings weren’t installed in any of the school’s non-gender-neutral bathrooms. Burkhart says the openings were covered by plywood on Thursday on the advice of lawyers from the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center, a conservative legal group the board consulted before ordering the windows installed.
A Pennsylvania school district has reversed course and boarded up window openings it recently installed that allowed people in a middle school hallway to peer into two gender-neutral-designated bathrooms, the superintendent said Friday.
The two windows were installed in recent weeks following a vote in August of the South Western School District’s conservative-majority school board, a move the board president said was designed to monitor and prevent misbehavior. Such openings weren’t installed in any of the school’s non-gender-neutral bathrooms.
The openings were covered by plywood on Thursday on the advice of lawyers from the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center, a conservative legal group the board consulted before ordering the windows installed, Superintendent Jay Burkhart said.
“I believe that we have to protect all of our students,” Burkhart said in a phone interview. “Students are entitled to privacy and I don’t want to violate that.”
The board “has been targeting transgender students and stripping away their rights for a while,” said Kristina Moon, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Education Law Center, which has asked affected students to reach out to it. She said the “multiple tiers and assignments” of bathrooms “overcomplicated a nonissue,” stigmatizing students.
“Now they’ve cut actual holes for windows into the student bathrooms — but only the bathrooms they expect trans and nonbinary children to use. This is a horrifying violation of children’s privacy and cruel discrimination targeted against trans and nonbinary kids,” Moon said in an emailed statement.
The mother of an eighth-grader at Emory H. Markle Middle School in Hanover said Friday that she considered the decision to cover up the windows “a small victory.”
Jennifer Holahan, who drew attention to the bathroom window openings by posting a photo on social media, said she’s “nervous to see” what happens at a meeting next week of the conservative-majority school board.
“This has been a continuing agenda that they’ve had,” Holahan said in a phone interview. “They’ve proved this more than once. I think this is the first time that the school board president has been shut down. And I just wonder what’s to come from that.”
School board president Matthew A. Gelazela, elected as a Libertarian in 2021, told a reporter seeking comment Friday that he considered the call to be criminal harassment and abruptly hung up.
Earlier this week, Gelazela issued a statement defending the bathroom windows as a safety improvement — that “in making the area outside of stalls more viewable, we are better able to monitor for a multitude of prohibited activities such as any possible vaping, drug use, bullying or absenteeism,” the Evening Sun of Hanover reported.
Gelazela’s statement also warned students that they should not consider the bathroom areas outside of the toilet stalls to be private.
Markle Middle School Principal Wes Winters directed questions about the bathroom windows to Gelazela. Board member Justin Lighty declined to discuss the matter, while several other board members and the board’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
In an emailed statement, the ACLU of Pennsylvania described the school board’s policy as discriminatory and one that makes children less safe. The South Western School District has about 4,400 students.
The York Dispatch reported this week that the board has been looking into LGBTQ+ students and bathrooms for more than a year, acting on concerns from unspecified people to establish five bathroom categories: male and female based on sex assigned at birth, male and female based on gender identity, and single-user facilities that are deemed gender neutral.
Gelazela said during an Aug. 14 board meeting that the windows were part of bathroom changes meant to bolster privacy, the Dispatch reported. The vote was 6-3 in favor of adding the windows, though the Evening Sun reported that work had already begun when the vote was taken.
Holahan said the window openings not only allowed people in the hallway to peer into the bathrooms, they also let noises from the bathrooms be heard. Burkhart, the superintendent, said the two gender neutral bathrooms have not been a particular problem for the type of misbehavior Gelazela cited. The renovations cost $8,700, Burkhart said.
At least 11 states have adopted laws barring transgender girls and women from using girls and women’s bathrooms at public schools, and in some cases other government facilities.
As for Pennsylvania, the Education Law Center wrote in a January analysis that federal appeals courts have ruled students have a right to use bathrooms and locker rooms aligned with their gender identity. Moon, a senior lawyer for the center, said all children have the right to use an easily accessible bathroom convenient to their classes that affords them true privacy and does not discriminate based on sex and gender identity.
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