Pa. women from both parties sweep judicial races
Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG — It was an encouraging development for those who advocate for more women in government.
Women swept Pennsylvania’s statewide judicial races Tuesday in a bipartisan show of power in the one corner of state politics with anything approaching gender parity: the appellate bench.
Women won all six appeals court seats up for grabs. Voters also retained two female jurists, as well as one male judge.
Although women have had success winning seats on the state Commonwealth, Superior and Supreme courts, they remain distinct minorities elsewhere in government. All three state row offices are held by men. Women represent less than a quarter of the state
Statewide, the 2017 election was a mixed bag for the major political parties: Democrats lost a chance to capture a Supreme Court seat, while Republicans lost numerous local contests in crucial Philadelphia suburbs.
Both parties scored wins in other statewide judicial races.
But Tuesday night was an unambiguous win for at least one local political movement: Democratic Socialism.
Two candidates endorsed by the Pittsburgh chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America — district judge candidate Mik Pappas and County Council District 3 candidate Anita Prizio — toppled veteran incumbents. Those wins were the first notched by a local chapter of a fast-growing national political movement and were an early test of its strength here.
“It goes back to all that energy that is out there from the 2016 election which you saw reflected all over the country last night,” Mr. Pappas said. “This is a new kind of politics, centered on finding solutions to crises that are happening at the local level: addiction, housing concerns, partner violence.”
Mr. Pappas won by a commanding margin of 55 to 45 percent over incumbent Democrat Ron Costa, who has a well-known Pittsburgh name, and had held the seat in the East End district for more than two decades. Ms. Prizio, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday, had a closer fight, beating Republican incumbent Ed Kress by just under 300 votes — a margin of roughly 1.5 percentage points.
District judges handle minor neighborhood disputes and preliminary criminal proceedings.
But the implications of the wins for the local DSA, which bills itself as “the largest socialist organization in the United States” with 25,000 members, go beyond such considerations.
Taken together, those results “I hope will be an arrival for us,” said Pittsburgh DSA chapter co-chair Adam Shuck. “We are a political entity that, a year ago, had seven people. We’ve blossomed to almost 400 members who are doing active work.”
As a movement, the DSA gained mightily from the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont last year, and the movement has become increasingly diverse and youthful. Tuesday night was good for Democratic Socialists elsewhere as well. In one of the election’s most surprising outcomes, DSA candidate Lee Carter toppled a prominent Virginia Republican, Jackson Miller, in a race for state legislature.
While Mr. Shuck stressed that politics was only part of the Pittsburgh DSA’s activities — the group also holds community events and educational sessions on socialism — it was a force to be reckoned with throughout the campaign. Mr. Pappas estimates that DSA and other volunteers hit 15,000 doors throughout his district, usually three times each.
On Election Day, “We had 150 volunteers through the day, standing at polls and doing get-out-the-vote work in the freezing rain. And clearly people turned out for this race, to vote for me.”
Early vote counts suggest that is true. Nearly 8,900 votes were cast in the race — a sharp increase over the total of the almost 5,800 the last time Mr. Costa ran, unopposed, in 2011.
Mr. Costa did not go down without a fight: His campaign sent out a letter calling the DSA a “splinter group that has called for the elimination of prisons and police.” Such concerns, as well as warnings that Mr. Pappas would try to legislate from the bench, played on Mr. Pappas’ desire to dispense with cash bail in many nonviolent cases that came before him.
Mr. Pappas downplayed those fears: As an attorney, he said, “I’m an officer of the court, and I’ll be taking an oath to uphold the laws. I have a lot of respect for first responders. I think we ask them to do too much, honestly.”
In any case, he said, the letter showed that “the DSA is a force to reckon with. Not only do they have growing numbers, but they have a message that resonates with people. It’s a vision of a society that works for everybody, not just the fortunate few.”
Another test of that vision’s popularity is already in the offing. DSA member Sara Innamorato has already launched a bid to topple Ron Costa’s cousin, state Rep. Dom Costa, whose lawand-order politics and conservative outlook irk progressives. Pittsburgh’s DSA chapter hopes to endorse other candidates next month.
Ms. Innamorato said Tuesday night’s results “were a milestone, and having reached it with such success, I’m basking in it. It’s a first taste of hope.
“This is something new for Pittsburgh: speaking openly about democratic socialism, challenging people that have familiar names. And people are so excited to have a choice. We’re showing them democracy in action.”