The ballot for Tuesday’s general election will be laden with judicial candidates, including those running for the bench at the Common Pleas, Superior, Commonwealth and Supreme Court levels. Most of those have been campaigning for many months.
But there will be additional judicial races on the ballot, too — for retention of eight Allegheny County Common Pleas Court candidates. Those candfidates have not been campaigning at all.
That’s because in Allegheny County, the bar association runs the retention campaign for them.
“Our members find it’s a nice way to ensure their voice is heard,” said Jim Creenan, immediate past president of the Allegheny County Bar Association and chairman of the Judicial Excellence Committee. “We’re able to communicate to the public these judges are qualified to do a good job.”
In Pennsylvania, jurists must run for retention every 10 years and reclaim their seat on the bench with a simple majority “yes,” vote. In Allegheny County, instead of the judges having to raise money and campaign for their seats, Mr. Creenan said, the bar association’s Judicial Excellence Committee handles it for them. They’ve been doing it that way for the past 45 years.
Each judge must donate $1,000 to the fund, which also collects donations from other attorneys and law firms, as well as a fundraiser. That money, about $40,000, is then used to fund print and television ads informing the public about the retention campaign.
The bar association touts a number of benefits to its retention campaign: sitting judges do not have to solicit donations from lawyers or firms, and they don’t have to spend time away from the bench campaigning.
To determine if a sitting judge is qualified to remain on the bench, the bar association conducts a vote with its members, asking for a simple yes or no regarding each individual judge.
For this year’s candidates, with about 2,000 attorneys responding, the answer was yes for all of them. The bar association would not release the results of the poll but said all eight judges received more than 65 percent “yes” votes.
“The numbers were overwhelming,” Mr. Creenan said. “There was no question.”
Those up for retention include the following: in criminal division, Edward J. Borkowski, Thomas E. Flaherty, Beth A. Lazzara, Anthony M. Mariani, and Donna Jo McDaniel; in civil division, Alan D. Hertzberg; and in family division, Kathryn M. Hens-Greco and Dwayne D. Woodruff.
Lynn Marks, the executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, likes the idea of the bar’s retention program.
“A process that plays up qualifications and educates the public about the judges, and keeps judges out of the campaign process, is a good thing,” she said.
The idea of running a joint campaign representing all the candidates together makes sense, Ms. Marks said.
“Voters can take it or leave it,” she said, “but it’s one more tool for voters to consider when making these decisions.”
Paula Reed Ward: pward@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2620 or on Twitter: @PaulaReedWard.
First Published: November 2, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
