The races

PA Supreme Court



We already knew the matchup here, long before the primary. Democrat Dwayne Woodruff, an Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) trial judge, and Republican Sallie Mundy, interim justice appointed by Tom Wolf, were unopposed in their primaries. Nonetheless, it is interesting to look at the total number of votes each received. With 99% reporting:

Dwayne Woodruff 613,518 Sallie Mundy 450,519

The fact that Woodruff received more total votes is not surprising, as registered Democrats considerably outnumber registered Republicans in Pennsylvania. Nonetheless, it does show that more Democrats voted than would typically be expected in a race like this. Democratic turnout was significantly up from 2009 and 2013, on par with 2011, and slightly down from 2015. That’s a somewhat promising sign for the fall. More on that shortly.

PA Superior Court

We averted the debacle that would have been a Bill Caye nomination—underqualified, anti-choice, scathing review from the PA bar association. We nominated the other four candidates, the endorsed slate—Debbie Kunselman, Geoff Moulton, Maria McLaughlin, and Carolyn Nichols. They are all solid candidates—qualified, mainstream liberals. Here are the vote totals for both parties, with 99% reporting:

Democrats: Maria McLaughlin 454,453 Carolyn Nichols 442,889 Debbie Kunselman 427,311 Geoff Moulton 357,364 Bill Caye 267,043 Republicans: Craig Stedman 378,943 Emil Giordano 319,086 Wade Kagarise 318,662 Mary Murray 293,705 Paula Patrick 226,209

The first-place Republican got fewer votes than the third-place Democrat—nothing conclusive, but not a bad sign (although the contrast was even starker in the 2015 primary, which was the precursor to a fantastic general election). And he’s the only Republican to outpace any of the Democratic slate (Caye excluded of course).

Also notable is how far the Democratic women outpaced the men. Look at the gap between Kunselman and Moulton. This may have something to do with women being (rightly) outraged by Trump.

Another interesting tidbit is the GOP’s nomination of Mary Murray—she’s a magistrate in the Pittsburgh area, and was *not* endorsed by the state GOP. Usually, the GOP’s endorsed slate wins, but Murray edged Paula Patrick. Why? Geography, I suspect—candidates’ home counties are printed on the primary ballot, and Paula Patrick hails from Philadelphia. Few of the state's Republicans live, and most Republicans are repulsed by anything “Philadelphia.” Maybe some racism—Patrick is black, although I doubt a majority of voters would have known that. Personally, I’m just as glad she lost—she’s in the mold of Clarence Thomas, has better credentials than Murray, and would likely have been a stronger candidate. No risk of her ascending to Superior Court for at least a couple more years. Murray did not even seek a rating from the PA bar, and she would probably have been not recommended due to lack of experience.

PA Commonwealth Court

Here’s where we get some not-so-good news: one of the two Democratic nominations went to Irene Clark, a former magistrate currently in private practice. She was the weakest of our six candidates, rated not recommended by the PA bar for insufficient relevant experience. Geography bit us here—Clark and Timothy Barry, another weak candidate, were both from Pittsburgh, and western PA mindlessly voted as a bloc for them. That proved far too much for two stronger candidates, Joe Cosgrove and Todd Eagen of Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, to overcome.

Meanwhile, the GOP had only two contenders, and unfortunately both are strong candidates for the fall—Christine Cannon is a highly recommended trial judge in the Philly suburbs, which will help her get votes in that crucial swing area. Paul Lalley is a recommended Pittsburgh corporate attorney—he’ll have residual name recognition from his 2015 run for this court, and while he has no chance to win Allegheny County, it’s possible he could overperform in that crucial Democratic bastion.

It’s not all bad news, though—the top vote getter on our side was Ellen Ceisler, who is excellent. In terms of geography, she’s in Philadelphia and could help counteract Cannon’s draw in the suburbs. As many people on this site know, Ceisler is a solid progressive judge. She makes that quite clear on her website: www.ceislerforpa.com/…

ENVIRONMENT The Pennsylvania Constitution guarantees all citizens the right to “clean air and pure water.” Issues related to clean air and water, fracking, pipelines, and a wide variety of land use and eminent domain issues are likely to come before the Commonwealth Court. The Court also makes rulings on regulations promulgated by the Department of Environmental Protection and other executive branch agencies that deal with the environment. ​ REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

Anti-choice lawmakers are pushing new legislation in Harrisburg that would restrict a women’s right to choose, including a 20-week ban on abortion. Commonwealth Court is likely to rule on any constitutional challenge to the legislation. Other state laws and regulations related to reproductive health also fall within the jurisdiction of Commonwealth Court. WOMEN’S HEALTHCARE FUNDING

It is highly likely that the GOP-controlled state legislature will continue to wage war on funding for women’s healthcare. Funding to the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services may be restricted for reasons that violate the Pennsylvania and/or United States Constitution. It will be the responsibility of the Commonwealth Court to ensure that women’s constitutional rights are protected LGBT EQUALITY & NON-DISCRIMINATION

Marriage equality may have come through the federal bench, but Commonwealth Court could potentially rule on many issues related to LGBT equality at the state level. This could include state regulations including proposed workplace anti-discrimination laws, which would protect LGBT individuals from being discriminated against at work and while seeking housing or other accommodations. ​ PROTECTING LGBT STUDENTS

There is a renewed push to ensure that LGBT students are safe from bullying in public schools. This is being done through a combination of new legislation and enhanced regulations from the Department of Education. Any court challenge to these new rules would likely end up coming before Commonwealth Court. ​ CIVIL LIBERTIES Care about criminal justice reform, due process, or privacy? What about religious liberty, free speech, or transparency in government? Commonwealth Court could rule on cases that involve all of those issues and more. Any state law or regulation that infringes on civil liberties will likely come before the court. CIVIL RIGHTS

Commonwealth Court could potentially rule on legislation related to voting rights, police accountability, affirmative action, and other civil rights issues. For example, Commonwealth Court ruled against the so-called “Voter ID” law that came before them in 2014. This is just one example of the many civil rights issues that could come before the Court in the future.​



I’m definitely excited to vote for Ellen Ceisler again this fall, and really hope she gets elected. And I should be clear about one other thing—I will also vote for Irene Clark. An underqualified democrat (small d is intentional) is better than a qualified fascist. I would have preferred Eagen or Cosgrove get the other nomination (I voted for Ceisler and Cosgrove), but we have our nominees and while Clark is less credentialed, she’ll be a pro-democracy voice on the court, unlike Trump enablers Cannon or Lalley.

The turnout

Democratic turnout overall was surprisingly okay for an off-off-year, though obviously unspectacular. If a fascist traitor can’t make us show up, I don’t know what can, but—We eclipsed the 2009 and 2013 turnouts by over 100,000 votes—and both those years, we lost in the fall. We were on par with 2011 (a split decision in the fall) and down a bit from 2015 (a Democratic sweep, including of 3 state Supreme Court seats). Republicans appear to have almost matched 2015, eclipsed 2013, but did not reach their 2009 or 2011 levels. The only judicial primary in recent memory where more Republicans voted than Democrats was 2009—which foretold Democratic losses in the fall, where 6 of 7 seats up went Republican.

Reading our chances for fall from primary turnout is of course uncertain, but the pattern this year appears more favorable than 2009 or 2011, at least somewhat more favorable than 2013, although less promising than 2015. (If we go back to 2003 or 2007, turnout was relative higher in both parties.) Specifically focusing on Philadelphia, we can find this: more Democrats voted in yesterday’s primary than in the general elections of 2009 and 2013, when the same municipal offices would have been up. The number of Philadelphia Democrats voting in the primary yesterday was comparable to the number who voted in 2011’s general election, when then-Mayor Michael Nutter was running for a second term against token opposition.

Competitive Democratic primaries for city controller and DA probably increased turnout somewhat. For controller, Rebecca Rhynhart handily defeated incumbent Alan Butkovitz, and for DA, Larry Krasner, who seems reform-oriented, emerged on top from a crowded field. Kossack pasuburbdem1 had commented on the possibility that Rich Negrin, backed by pro-Trump police unions, might win; Krasner seems much better. Negrin came in third.

To the General Election!

Our slate is set, and I am generally happy with the results, other than Irene Clark. There are also reasons, as outlined above to be hopeful that we might not go down like we did in 2009 and 2013, and like we always seem to do in the year after a presidential election (seriously—you want to find a PA judicial election, held the year after a presidential one, where Democrats did well, you have to go all the way back to 1989). In addition to what I wrote above, I’ll note that 5 of our 7 candidates are women (it’s 3 of 7 on the GOP side). For some reason, women often do well in PA judicial races—an irony considering we’ve never had a female governor or senator, but the numbers don’t lie. If Democratic women are more motivated to vote in an off-year than usual, that could help us.

Of course, nothing is guaranteed. I could just be grasping at straws—after all, it takes almost nothing to stop a Democrat from voting, while Republicans will vote nearly always. It is highly likely the Koch brothers will be spending big to install their puppets on our courts. The 2015 sweep was aided by a confluence on circumstances that won’t be repeated this year—an open-seat race for Philly mayor, 3 Supreme Court seats open instead of 1 (the first such occurrence since 1704), two excellent Democratic candidates with substantial crossover appeal (David Wecht and Christine Donohue), and a Philadelphia candidate with lots of money and relatives in the political machine (Kevin Dougherty). Who better to motivate the machine to get people to vote than the brother of one of their leaders? (John Dougherty is one of Philly’s most powerful union bosses.)

In any case, I feel better about our chances than I expected to, but I definitely would not consider us favorites. These races are important to stop Trump and help PA implement progressive policies, and we need to work to bring them across the finish line.



P.S. A couple notes on other races—in Pittsburgh, the progressive-minded mayor, Bill Peduto, won the Democratic primary easily over two challengers, which guarantees him a second term as he faces no real opposition in the fall. And in a special election for State Senate District 32 in Georgia, we lost again, 57-43. A loss is a loss and if I hear one more excuse about improving on the margin or moral victories I’m going to scream. The fact is, we are losing. The governing party is run by a fascist traitor, the party gladly enables him, and people are still voting for them. That’s the bottom line.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for now on PA judges. But, if not sooner, I’ll be back with more in the fall, when the race heats up.