State Supreme Court Justice Strikes Back At Anti-Retention Attack Ads During Schuylkill County Visit

Christine Donohue, one of three state Supreme Court justices up for a retention vote on Nov. 4, defended their record and issued a stark warning on Tuesday during a visit to Schuylkill County about a heavily funded effort to deny them a second 10-year term.

If the campaign against the justices succeeds, the court would be hamstrung for two years in cases “where there could be an ideological split,” Donohue said in a keynote speech at the Schuylkill County Democratic Women’s League’s annual Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner in Pottsville.

This could have serious repercussions for the midterms next year because in every election since 2020, there have been “repetitive challenges in an attempt to throw out (mail-in) ballots.” Donohue said.

She added, “If history is any proof of what’s going to happen in the future, come 2026, you can count on those same kinds of challenges. And without a functioning Supreme Court … chaos and even a worse outcome — some votes won’t be counted – “ would ensue.

Donohue, along with David Wecht and Kevin Dougherty, won their first terms on the courts as Democrats, giving their party a 5-2 majority. But sitting judges don’t face challengers.

If they lose their retention bids, the governor, in this case a Democrat, and two-thirds of the GOP-led Senate would have to agree on interim replacements. But Donohue does not see that happening, so the three seats would probably remain vacant until the next odd-year election.  

That would leave the Supreme Court with only four justices, two of whom were elected as Republicans and two as Democrats. (By contrast, retention races are considered nonpartisan, so the ballot doesn’t identify a judge’s political affiliation.)

Donohue targets attack ads

Spotlight PA reports that political action committees that are mostly funded by Jeff Yass, whose net worth Forbes estimates at $65.7 billion, are blanketing the state with “misleading” ads and mailers. 

For example, a Commonwealth Partners mailer equated defeats for the justices with term-limiting the Supreme Court.

“There are no term limits in Pennsylvania” for the court, Donohue said. “What we have after 10 years is the opportunity to ask you to allow us to continue to serve.”

An important part of that service has been upholding the state constitution, she said, citing its amendments providing for equal rights and environmental rights, as well as its free and fair elections clause.

A mailer from the Commonwealth Leaders Fund shows a heavily gerrymandered congressional district map that it claims the Supreme Court drew to send more Democrats to Washington.

That map was actually produced by the GOP Legislature after the 2010 Census, and it resulted in a congressional delegation of 13 Republicans and five Democrats, Donohue said.

“How could that be?” Donohue said. “I mean, Pennsylvania is a purple state.”

In 2018, the court drew criticism from Republican lawmakers by saying their map violated the constitution and ordering it to be redrawn. That led to wins of nine seats each for the two parties.   

The coal region effect

Donohue expressed optimism that she and her colleagues would prevail on the November ballot.

“People are very excited about this retention election,” she said. “… It’s the first opportunity to speak up against the powers on the other side who are mightily, mightily powerful, who are attempting to buy the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania because they have a lot of money.”

Donohue’s appearance at the dinner was especially meaningful, she said, because she was born in Coaldale and grew up in nearby Lansford. The 90 attendees at Tuesday’s dinner gave her something of a homecoming welcome.

She told Coal Region Canary that her upbringing in the coal region influenced everything she ever did.

Donohue said her father, a coal miner, and her mother, a seamstress who worked in a shirt factory, raised their children “to be hard working people and to have integrity and to make certain that we could always look ourselves in the mirror after any decision that we ever made.

“And it’s been my North Star the entire time that I’ve been alive,” she said.

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