{"id":5608,"date":"2025-10-17T10:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T10:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/5608\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T10:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T10:43:10","slug":"pennsylvania-gop-all-in-on-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/5608\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania GOP all in on No"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pennsylvania<\/a> Republican Party<\/a> Chairman Greg Rothman says his biggest challenge in this year\u2019s off-cycle election<\/a> is reminding voters how crucial it is to turn out and vote \u201cno\u201d on the retention of three Pennsylvania Supreme Court<\/a> justices seeking new ten-year terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in February, when I became chairman, I looked at this and thought this should be pretty simple to reach our voters. There are three partisan Democrats up for retention, our voters have not been supported of many of the decisions they have made and our job is to get the word out,\u201d said Rothman in an interview with the Washington Examiner.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, when all three state Supreme Court seats were open, Pennsylvania Democrats held a registration advantage of roughly one million voters and enjoyed a flood of campaign cash. The three Democratic candidates, Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht, raised more than $5.6 million combined, more than double what their Republican and independent opponents collected in the general election.<\/p>\n

THE UNCONSCIONABLE LOSS OF CONSCIENCE FOR VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS<\/a><\/p>\n

That loss gave Democrats a 5-2 majority in the state\u2019s highest court.<\/p>\n

The losses marked a stunning setback for Pennsylvania Republicans, sparking fears that the defeat would ripple into the 2016 U.S. Senate and presidential races and undermine the party\u2019s hold on the state legislature. But those fears proved unfounded. The following year, Donald Trump carried Pennsylvania, Sen. Pat Toomey won reelection, and Republicans performed strongly across the ballot.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean, however, that the court\u2019s composition has been without consequences. In one of its most significant moves, the court struck down the state\u2019s congressional map just seven years after it had been approved by a bipartisan legislature, then unilaterally redrew the districts in a way that tilted the balance of power toward Democrats.<\/p>\n

The court has also frustrated many voters, particularly Republicans, independents, and conservative Democrats, with rulings that expanded the executive branch\u2019s power to impose COVID restrictions, including extending deadlines for mail-in ballots. Rothman is betting that those voters won\u2019t have forgotten those decisions by the time they head to the polls on November 4, 2025.<\/p>\n

Justices serve ten-year terms until they reach the mandatory retirement age of 75 or are voted out. Only once in Pennsylvania history has a state Supreme Court justice been removed by voters\u2014back in 2005, amid widespread outrage over a 2 a.m. legislative vote to approve a pay raise. Although the court had nothing to do with the raise, its members were the only officials on the ballot that year, and angry voters from both parties decided someone had to pay the price.<\/p>\n

Because turnout in these off-year elections is typically low and voters tend to vote for retention automatically, Rothman says it\u2019s up to Republicans to make the case for a \u201cNo\u201d vote.<\/p>\n

The state party has deployed staff and volunteers throughout all 67 counties to remind people to vote. \u201cWe also have a comprehensive get-out-the-vote operation, a mail-in program, and digital outreach to our voters as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If one, two, or all three justices fail to win retention, that doesn\u2019t automatically hand their seats to Republicans. Instead, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro would nominate replacements, who must then be confirmed by a two-thirds vote in the Republican-controlled state Senate.<\/p>\n

The last vacancy on the court occurred in 2022, when Justice Max Baer died. Then-Governor Tom Wolf and, later, his successor Josh Shapiro both declined to appoint a replacement, leaving the decision to voters in the November 2023 election. They ultimately chose Democrat Daniel McCaffery, who had been serving on the Pennsylvania Superior Court.<\/p>\n

In 2015, national Republican leaders assumed they could coast to victory in an off-year election, when GOP voters typically turn out in greater numbers than Democrats. Unwilling to invest heavily, they watched as well-funded Democrats seized the opportunity and won a contest Republicans had long dominated.<\/p>\n

Rothman, a Marine Corps Reserve veteran who has served in the state House since 2015, recalled the tensions during the COVID pandemic. \u201cGovernor Tom Wolf kept doing things we believed were outside his authority,\u201d he said. \u201cWe, as the legislature, would challenge him in c90 ourt\u2014and the state Supreme Court kept siding with the governor,\u201d referring to the dispute over Wolf\u2019s power to extend emergency orders beyond 30 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to have a referendum saying that he didn\u2019t have the right to have an emergency order last beyond 30 days. It became a constitutional amendment. We had to amend the state Constitution because this court was ruling for the COVID stuff,\u201d Rothman continued.<\/p>\n

PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRATS PRAISE TRUMP PEACE DEAL<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that judges ought to be judges and legislators should legislate. And we want courts to just uphold the constitution and the law, and not make the law. And that\u2019s why we think this is an opportunity for voters to let that be known,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rothman said Republicans need to do a better job motivating all voters to participate in off-year elections, not just their own base. \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as an off year\u2014it\u2019s an odd year,\u201d he said. \u201cThe truth is, our local school districts affect our daily lives just as much as statewide offices do. Who you elect to your school board matters. You might not think about that impact every day, but when something controversial comes up\u2014whether it\u2019s a court ruling or a school policy\u2014it\u2019s on all of us to show up and make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Greg Rothman says his biggest challenge in this year\u2019s off-cycle election is reminding voters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5084,46,33,28,30,29,5085,5086],"class_list":["post-5608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-2025-elections","tag-courts","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-republican-party","tag-state-courts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608","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=5608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}