{"id":12279,"date":"2025-10-23T10:20:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T10:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/12279\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T10:20:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T10:20:06","slug":"pa-election-2025-superior-court-voter-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/12279\/","title":{"rendered":"PA election 2025: Superior Court voter guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

What questions do you have about the 2025 elections? What major issues do you want candidates to address? Let us know.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

This year, voters will determine who joins one of Pennsylvania\u2019s most powerful courts: the Superior Court, which handles thousands of criminal, civil and family appeals cases each year and is often the final word in justice for many residents across the commonwealth. The court\u2019s decisions can shape everything from parental custody arrangements to criminal sentencing and consumer protections to business issues.\n<\/p>\n

Three candidates \u2014 Democrat Judge Brandon Neuman, Republican Maria Battista and Daniel Wassmer of the Liberal Party \u2014 are vying for an open seat. Meanwhile, Democratic Judge Alice Beck DuBow is seeking a new 10-year term in a separate retention vote.\n<\/p>\n

The Superior Court is one of two intermediate appellate courts in Pennsylvania, which review decisions from the state\u2019s 67 county courts. The Superior Court has the final say on around 97% of its decisions which are not successfully appealed to the state Supreme Court.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want your communities to be safe? All criminal matters if appealed \u2026 go to the Superior Court. I ask people, \u2018Do you care about your families, your children, your grandchildren?\u2019 All matters related to families and children go to the Superior Court,\u201d Maria Battista, the Republican nominee, told PCNTV last month<\/a>. \u201cDo you care about your property rights? Property issues go to the Superior Court.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s who is running.\n<\/p>\n

Judge Brandon Neuman<\/p>\n

Judge Brandon Neuman<\/a> ran uncontested in the Democratic primary. He currently serves on the County Court of Common Pleas in Washington County<\/a>, where he is a lifelong resident. He graduated from the University of Richmond and Duquesne University Kline School of Law, and practiced trial law before being elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2017, where he served four terms. He ran for lieutenant governor but lost in the primary.\n<\/p>\n

He says his time as a lawmaker shaped how he views the role of the appellate bench.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou learn about how the law is created and then, as a judge, you understand that we are not lawmakers,\u201d he said in an interview with PCNTV<\/a>. \u201cYou have to respect and appreciate how hard it is to make a law and then take a step back as a judge and say we have to follow the law and the constitution. That is our job.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

His legislative work included authoring the Debbie Smith Act, which was aimed at ending Pennsylvania\u2019s backlog of untested rape kits.\n<\/p>\n

In a notable 2024 ruling, Neuman ordered Washington County<\/a> to notify voters if their mail ballots contained errors that could prevent them from being counted, a decision that was upheld<\/a> by successive higher courts<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

He said he sees the judiciary\u2019s biggest challenge as \u201crebuilding public trust\u201d in an era of widespread skepticism toward government institutions.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, the courts generally have the lowest approval rating that they\u2019ve had probably in modern history,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t come to court voluntarily. It\u2019s not something that you enjoy. And so really just making sure \u2026 that this process is going to be fair, it\u2019s going to be impartial. I\u2019m going to listen to you and I\u2019m going to follow the law.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Bar Association\u2019s Judicial Evaluation Commission rated Neuman \u201cHighly Recommended<\/a>,\u201d citing his judicial record and demeanor. He has received endorsements<\/a> from several labor unions, including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 13, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO. He is also endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police Pennsylvania State Lodge, Pennsylvania State Troopers Association and Pennsylvania Sheriffs\u2019 Association.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What questions do you have about the 2025 elections? What major issues do you want candidates to address?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1383,28,30,29,9582],"class_list":["post-12279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-elections-2025","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-superior-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}