(The Center Square) – While many may think of the state’s highest court as an arbiter of the intersection between law and culture, taxpayers often take a more direct hit from the judges’ decisions.
That is, right in the wallet.
On Tuesday, voters across Pennsylvania overwhelmingly chose to retain David Wecht, Christine Donohue and Kevin Dougherty for another 10 years, preserving the state Supreme Court’s 5-2 liberal majority.
Conservative political groups had hoped to persuade voters to side against retention, casting them as left-leaning activists who have used their power to influence the state and support policies, like carbon taxes and Medicaid-covered abortions, that raise costs on health care benefits and utility bills.
Since the state put retention on the ballot in 1968, only one judge has lost their retention race. The justices’ mandates are up for renewal every 10 years until they reach the age of 75. The nonpartisan Pennsylvania Bar Association recommended all three for retention.
The race was viewed as one of several across the country that might serve as referendums of Republican leadership under President Donald Trump and in Congress. Trump himself urged Pennsylvania voters to oust the justices, whom he called “radical.”
The messaging countered how national Democrats frame the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, pointing to its landmark ruling overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, which cast the question of abortion access back to state governments. Many political observers cite the decision as the primary catalyst for the “blue wave” in that year’s midterm elections.
That same argument, as well as others related to union power and voter ID, appeared successful in Tuesday’s off-year municipal elections, where voters for the minority party often turn out in droves to begin tipping the balance of power in the coming years.
The Commonwealth Foundation, a policy group focused on fiscal conservatism, told The Center Square the retained justices also changed rules that allowed plaintiffs to file cases in jurisdictions considered more sympathetic to their plight, many of which were often medical malpractice fights.
The practice, called “jurymandering” by critics, spikes costs through payouts, higher deductibles, and provider insurance costs that contribute to annual job losses of nearly 172,000. The data, according to a recent study from the Perryman Group, translates to a per-resident “tort tax” of $1,431.
Then there’s the years-long battle over carbon taxes, which Democrats back to reduce harmful emissions and hasten the transition to green energy. Republicans argue the shortsighted program, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or RGGI for short, could spike electricity bills as much as 30% and eliminate roughly 22,000 jobs.
“Governor Shapiro is asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to overturn the lower court rulings that rightly found RGGI to be an unconstitutional tax,” said Elizabeth Stelle, the foundation’s vice president of policy. “If he prevails and forces Pennsylvania into this program without the consent of the Legislature, RGGI would impose an energy tax that will increase electricity bills by as much as 30% and result in a loss of approximately 22,000 Pennsylvania jobs and $7.7 billion in economic output. That’s an enormous price to pay for a policy that lawmakers have repeatedly rejected.”
Democrats argue the cost of a conservative majority court is more than just money – it’s social. On Tuesday night, Ken Martin, who chairs the National Democratic Party, cheered the retention vote as a “major win for fair elections, reproductive rights, voting rights and democracy.”
Christina Lengyel contributed to this report.
