One of the most critical elections this year is occurring right here in Pennsylvania — the Supreme Court retention election. A usually sleepy affair attracting little interest, this year’s race has turned into a well-financed, bitter battle to determine who will control this state’s Supreme Court for the next several years.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is one of the state’s three appellate courts (along with the Superior and Commonwealth Courts). As the name implies, the Supreme Court is the court of last resort.
Pennsylvania is one of only 24 states that elects its justices. The elected justices serve 10-year terms and then must run for re-election. Unlike most elections, the incumbents do not run against opponents. Instead, the voters get only two choices: to say yes and retain the judges for another ten-year term or to say no and remove them from their positions.
Until this year, the system worked fine.
Not this time. This retention election has become a heatedly contested partisan fight. The seven-member court currently has five Democrats and two Republicans. Three of the Democrats, Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty and David Wecht, are up for retention this year.
If all three Democrats are not retained, the Court would be tied, two to two. Governor Shapiro would then nominate three new justices who would require confirmation by the Republican controlled Senate. Given the hyper-partisan state of Harrisburg’s politics today, the odds of Senate confirmation are basically nil, and the seats would remain empty until partisan elections in 2027.
There could then be chaos on the Court, with split votes on cases like redistricting and other election issues, school funding, environmental rules and labor questions.
And so, this normally placid election has been turned into a nationally watched cage match.
Who wins? Hard to say.
The two things that are certain are that the consequences of this election will last for years to come and, because of that, the Pennsylvania results in this normally boring race will be watched intently here and around the country.
Joseph Powers is an adjunct professor of political science.