PA Supreme Court Judges Seek Another Decade Of Leftist Activism

You may know Pennsylvania’s Democrat Supreme Court justices by the misery they inflicted during Covid. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf declared a state of emergency on March 6, 2020, and locked down the state in response to the Covid pandemic. Then a Republican-led legislative resolution passed that would have returned the state to normal operations. The state Supreme Court invalidated the resolution on July 1, and because of that decision, the devastating shutdown lasted until June 2021.  

Now the judges who made that happen want Pennsylvanians to vote to keep their power.

A Republican campaign to “vote no” Tuesday on all statewide judges on the ballot aims to flip the state Supreme Court’s far-left slant by denying activist judges a 10-year retention. They are Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justices Kevin M. Dougherty, 63; David Wecht, 63; and Christine Donohue, 72. All are already old enough to start drawing Social Security retirement benefits. If retained, Donohue will be 82 for her next retention vote. Currently the state Supreme Court has seven judges: five Democrats and two Republicans.

Republicans also urge voters to say no to the 10-year retention of Judge Michael H. Wojcik, 61, for the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, and Alice Beck Dubow, 66, in the Superior Court.

In Pennsylvania, judges run with party affiliation for their first 10-year term. After that, they stop listing party affiliation on ballots, and voters are simply asked if the judge should be retained, voting yes or no.  

“Retention is a nonpolitical method of reelecting Pennsylvania judges and is intended to be politically neutral as they do not require judges to engage in campaigning against other candidates,” the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts wrote in a 2017 explainer. “Retention is specifically designed to keep judges out of the political fray while at the same time holding them accountable to the voters based on their overall records and performance in office. The intent is to provide a fair and nonpartisan way for the public to judge its judges.” 

But the retention vote is highly partisan and totally political, with President Donald Trump and Gov. Josh Shapiro weighing in on social media.

Low voter turnout and other factors have allowed Democrats to take over the courts. And if you look back at how Democrat partisanship has played out for Pennsylvanians, it has been a decade of terribly lopsided decisions. Dougherty, Wecht, and Donohue were elected in 2015 and took their seats in 2016.

Gerrymandering

When the state’s congressional districts were challenged in 2018, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Democrat justices decided to take the task out of the usual hands of the then-Republican-led General Assembly leadership and redraw the map themselves, making it more favorable for Democrats. The map was not due to be redrawn until after the 2020 census, but Democrats seized the opportunity. At the time, Republicans complained that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had usurped the Legislature’s authority.

The court has voted against election integrity matters numerous times, ignoring written law and siding with Democrat activists.  

Election Integrity

In one case, two voters jointly went to court requesting their ballots be counted after improperly casting ballots by mail in the 2024 primary election. After stuffing their completed ballots directly inside the mailing envelopes without using the required secrecy envelope, they learned their improper votes were rejected. They then tried to vote on Election Day but were told their provisional ballots were not counted. They argued they were unlawfully disenfranchised by the board’s decision to reject their provisional ballots, even though the law says a provisional ballot shall not be counted if “the elector’s absentee ballot or mail-in ballot is timely received by a county board of elections.” The ballots arrived on time. But they were not eligible to be counted, as The Federalist previously reported.

Democrats on the court decided provisional ballots in Pennsylvania will be counted if a voter sends a naked ballot that must be thrown out.

In 2020, these activist judges ruled that mail ballots may not be rejected if the signature on the mail-in ballot package does not match the voter registry signature.  

In 2020, several Democrats on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled ballots could still “be counted up to three days after Election Day, even if it could not be shown that they had arrived by November 3, as required by state law,” The Federalist previously reported.

Also in 2020, in the case Ziccarelli v. Allegheny County Board of Elections, the court ruled 2,349 mail-in ballots lacking voter-inserted date on the outer envelope were valid and should be counted. This decision overturned a Commonwealth Court ruling that invalidated the ballots. It cost Ziccarelli, a Republican, a state Senate seat and handed the win to Democrat James R. Brewster by 69 votes.

Consider all their decisions together. The Democrat judges now seeking another decade on the bench believe a mail-in ballot can arrive up to three days late, with no secrecy envelope, and with a mismatched signature and still be counted.

Abortion

In 2024 the Supreme Court reversed a rule banning Pennsylvanians from using taxpayer-funded Medicaid coverage to pay for abortions. Planned Parenthood PA PAC endorses Dougherty, Wecht, and Donohue and has been working to retain them for more pro-abortion decisions.

It is safe to say many Pennsylvania voters do not know the names or party affiliation of the state Supreme Court justices and usually they simply vote yes, unaware of reasons to say no.

A state Supreme Court justice has been rejected for retention only once, in 2005, Pennsylvania GOP Communications Director James Markley told The Federalist. The judicial retention vote typically does not get much notice. This year is different.      

“The reason that it’s getting so much more attention is because this is the first retention race where the people of Pennsylvania see how these folks have changed their lives,” Markley said. “I mean, the Covid lockdowns. I dare you to find somebody who wasn’t affected by them. They shut down businesses; they shut down churches. They changed how an entire generation of students learned. And we won’t know those effects for years, if not decades. I think it really shook people and made them realize the power that these courts have. And, you know, I think Pennsylvanians are gaining momentum to vote no because they’re tired of the same old judges inserting themselves into their lives.”

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.