Pennsylvania voters to decide future of state Supreme Court in high-stakes retention election

The retention election will decide if three Supreme Court justices will receive a second term.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania voters will head to the polls Tuesday to decide whether three sitting state Supreme Court justices should remain on the bench, a vote that both major parties say could reshape the Commonwealth’s legal and political landscape for years to come.

Justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty and David Wecht are each seeking retention for another ten-year term. Because retention elections have no opposing candidates, voters will simply choose “Yes” or “No” for each justice, with a “Yes” vote to approve a second term and a “No” vote to deny it.

The justices, who were elected as Democrats in 2015, have all been endorsed by the nonpartisan Pennsylvania Bar Association.

Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Eugene DePasquale called it “the most important retention race in Pennsylvania history.”

“They are committed to the law,” DePasquale said. “They are committed to being fair. They also don’t always agree. They are doing exactly what judges and justices should do, and that is interpreting the Constitution to the best of their ability.”

DePasquale said the court’s decisions have safeguarded core constitutional rights.

“They have held that Pennsylvania’s Equal Rights Amendment means that women have equal access to making healthcare decisions that control their own body,” DePasquale said. “They have held that in the Pennsylvania school funding formula, that means every child has to get equal access to quality education.”

Guy Ciarrocchi, a writer for RealClear Pennsylvania and Broad + Liberty, said he believes voters should choose “No” on all three justices due to what he says has been a partisan agenda.

“There have been countless times where they failed the basic test,” Ciarrocchi said. “A judge, especially a Supreme Court judge, should be fair and impartial and follow the Constitution. Time and time again, they haven’t. They’ve acted as partisans, they’ve acted as super-legislators and they’ve ignored the rule of law.”

The issue of gerrymandering of Congressional Districts has become key in the election campaign. The Court struck down the Commonwealth’s previous map in 2018 which had given Republicans a 13-5 advantage in a nearly even partisan state.

The Court has itself drawn the Congressional map since after the General Assembly and Governor Tom Wolf could not agree on a map. The map currently stands at 10-7 Republicans after two seats flipped to the GOP in 2024. Five of the 17 seats are seen to be competitive on a year-to-year basis.

DePasquale said in a state with a nearly 50-50 partisan makeup, the map allows for an accurate representation of the state in congress.

“You’ve had some cycles where the Democrats maybe had a slight majority, some cycles where the Republicans had a slight majority, but so many more competitive races,” DePasquale said. “They stood up for the principle that it should be politically fair in making sure that the voters pick their politicians, not the politicians pick their voters.”

Ciarrocchi argues that the decision overstepped the court’s boundaries and interfered with the General Assembly’s job of drawing the maps.

“This court threw out Pennsylvania’s map before the 2018 election under the theory that too many Republicans were winning,” Ciarrocchi said. “The court threw out the map, and then the court drew their own map. So, I think they violated their bounds by throwing out the map.”

Voters have seen ads and mailers for this retention race from the millions in outside money that has poured in to try and unseat the justices, including from conservative billionaire Jeff Yass. 

One such mailer alleged the gerrymandered map struck down by the court was the one they actually enacted. 

“Jeff Yass literally pays for mailer that goes to Democrats and say, ‘Look at this gerrymandered map, if you think this map is bad vote no,'” DePasquale said. “The map that he was referring to was the exact map that the Democratic Supreme Court justices threw out as being gerrymandered. To me, that was just an attempt to try to trick voters, particularly Democratic voters. It literally is gutter politics.”

While the Court eventually struck down COVID-related school mask mandates in 2021, Republicans have tried to remind voters of covid restrictions the court said Governor Wolf had the authority to enact.

“Every time we went to court, whether it was dealing with being able to go to a house of worship, open up a local appliance store, get our kids in school, the Supreme Court gave Governor Wolf unfettered power,” Ciarrocchi said.

With the future of Pennsylvania’s judiciary in the balance, Ciarrocchi said the justices should be rejected over their partisanship, while DePasquale says their adherence to the law should earn them another term.

“They haven’t been fair, they haven’t been impartial, they haven’t used common sense, and in many cases, have not followed the rule of law,” Ciarrocchi said. “These are not people to give another 10-year term to.”

“If you want to make sure that we have competent jurists on the bench that are recommended by the nonpartisan Bar Association, if you want to make sure that the court belongs to the people of Pennsylvania, then vote yes,” DePasquale said. “If you want to have a MAGA billionaire own the court, then vote no.”