Retention Written November 5, 2025   I live in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  Rather than entrusting our political leaders to appoint judges, we prefer to elect them democratically — as do only 20 other states and only two other nations, Switzerland and Japan.  Why do we do this?  The Dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Jerry Dickinson, writes that “we must look back to the mid-19th century, when Pennsylvanians lost faith in their government.  Caught in a speculative frenzy, the state legislature had plunged the Commonwealth into a catastrophic debt, financing sprawling networks of canals and railroads.  The state was broke, its credit worthless, and the legislature was seen as both corrupt and incompetent.  The public's solution was quite radical at the time.  They wanted to strip power of appointment from the political insiders, who too often placed their friends on the bench as patronage.  By 1850, a constitutional amendment was enacted to create an elected judiciary.  The argument was that judges needed their own democratic mandate to serve as a true check on the other branches.” Also, we're one of only seven states that hold partisan judicial elections.  It happens that the current seven-member Pennsylvania Supreme Court consists of five Democrats and two Republicans. Partisan judges may not be a good idea.  The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorialized on October 9 that the system “raises particular problems for judicial credibility, especially in an age of increasing polarization and aggressive partisanship.  This becomes all the more challenging when so many cases in this battleground state's court, from congressional maps to mail balloting rules, have direct implications for elections.  ...Partisan affiliation should only indicate a judge's broad approach to legal theory — not whether he or she will construe the law in a way to benefit his or her own party.  Unfortunately, believing that judges are above partisanship is increasingly difficult.” Fortunately, our judges are not appointed for life.  Instead, after serving for ten years, a Pennsylvania judge is subject to a retention election.  Voters cast a “yes” or “no” vote on whether to keep an incumbent judge for another ten years, based on prior performance. This year, three of the seven Supreme Court justices were on the ballot, all of them Democrats.  If any of the three were to lose their retention votes, the Democratic governor would appoint temporary replacement(s).  But of course the Republican Senate would reject those Democrat(s), preferring two or three Republicans so that their party would attain a majority.  With the process at an impasse, the seat(s) would remain empty until a new election in 2027. The problem for voters was that nobody was actually familiar with the candidates for retention:  Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht. All three were recommended for retention and praised by the nonpartisan Pennsylvania Bar Association.  But the P-G noted that they all have distinctive judicial styles and principles and all have dissented on different occasions.  Should we vote to retain Donohue but reject the others?  Who could say? The goal of a retention vote, said Justice Donohue, is to judge the quality of the candidate's judicial performance — whether they are abiding by their oath and upholding the constitution.  While there's nothing wrong with criticizing court opinions, she said, “What is not OK is twisting opinions because you disagree with the outcomes.” According to a Franklin & Marshall College survey in October, most of us were undecided about every one of the three justices, though we tended to favor retention by small margins.  (“Likely voters” had somewhat firmer opinions; on average, 39% of those respondents leaned towards retention, but 33% were still undecided.) The Commonwealth Leaders Fund sent me a flier every week.  They didn't try to differentiate among the three Democrats.  Just throw everybody out! Why?  The trio were criticized for overturning a 2021 Bill Cosby conviction on procedural grounds, gerrymandering legislative districts, and being “driven by woke ideology.” The anti-retention campaign was largely financed by Jeffrey Yass, purported to be Pennsylvania's richest citizen. “MAGA billionaires,” wrote Chris Baldonieri of Latrobe in a letter to the editor of the Tribune-Review, “have been working at a fever pitch to turn this obscure 2025 judicial race into the victory that sets the stage for their biggest ambition yet: Trump 2028.” Unsurprisingly, liberals had opposing advertisements urging votes for Yes! Yes! Yes!  As of October 20, the three justices raised more than $14 million and spent nearly $12 million, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.  About two dozen outside groups spent an additional $5 million, with two-thirds of that supporting the justices.  “It could end up being one of the two most expensive retention elections in the history of the country,” said Douglas Keith of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.  “That speaks to this moment we're in.”  Kevan Yenerall, a political science professor at PennWest University in Clarion, added: “We live in a hyperpolarized, hypercompetitive environment, so it makes everything seem existential.  These elections are usually ho-hum, just ambient noise. But there's nothing ambient about politics these days in Pennsylvania and across the country. It's a reflection of how deeply divided we are. The stakes are just so high.” However, Democrats now seem more energized than Republicans, especially due to the Federal government shutdown.  Some 60% of Americans disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling the economy, while just 33% approve.  That is the President's most negative rating to date. When it came time to go to the polls yesterday, Pennsylvania voters overwhelmingly chose to retain all three justices by virtually identical margins, according to unofficial results. Here's part of a column posted today by Robert Elisberg, who likes to merge the acronyms MAGA and GOP. Motivation to actually vote is a huge factor, and Democrats have a massive lead in motivation.  Core MAGOP base voters absolutely love their cult leader Trump but avoid politics and won't necessarily go to the polls if Trump isn't on the ballot. The question now becomes:  when will MAGOPs in Congress start to be concerned about their own jobs by following a hugely unpopular leader who is a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, and guilty business fraud ... with dementia that is degenerative? A friend quipped that Mike Johnson can't comment because he hasn't seen the results yet. And NBC's Steve Kornacki told Wired: When you're talking about independent voters and swing voters, the opposition party becomes the protest vehicle. So whatever issue you have with the White House, with the party that controls Washington, whatever displeasure you have, the way to express it often is to vote for the opposition party. Democrats swept all the major races nationwide, from Mamdani in New York City to Proposition 50 in California.  Turnout was extraordinary, according to the New York Times:  the mayor’s race drew more than two million voters, almost double the 1.1 million people who voted for mayor four years ago.  Bad news for the President, although he did note that his supporters may have skipped this election because “Trump” was not on the ballot.