Democracy Has Prevailed.

November 4, 2015

The Results

From Chris Potter of the P-G:
Democrats swept the three seats up for grabs on the state Supreme Court, likely ensuring the party’s control of the state’s highest court for years to come.

According to unofficial results, Democratic Superior Court Judges David Wecht and Christine Donohue, both of Allegheny County, joined with Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Kevin Dougherty to lead the seven-person field.
And:
If the results hold, Democrats will hold five seats on the seven-member court. While the candidates themselves took pains to downplay partisan considerations during the race, the results should give the Democrats a political advantage in redrawing boundaries for the state Legislature after the 2020 Census. The Supreme Court usually picks a decisive fifth member to a redistricting commission otherwise evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
And from Pamela Reed Ward, also of the P-G:
The three Democrats who were winners in the primary will assume the bench after prevailing in Tuesday’s election.

Jennifer Staley McCrady, Dan Regan and Hugh McGough will take office in January.
Unfortunately, there's one last story from the P-G:
Iraq veteran Guy Reschenthaler defeated women’s advocate Heather Arnet for the state Senate’s open 37th District seat after a high-spending race that was as much about political labels as local issues.

Mr. Reschenthaler, 32, the GOP nominee from Jefferson Hills, will fill the seat that Matt Smith, a Democrat, resigned in June. The Democrats have a registration edge in the district — taking in three dozen northern, southern and western suburbs — but the GOP long held the seat before Mr. Smith’s election in 2012.
Election Day in Allegheny County, November 2015.

8 comments:

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

Hopefully now the PA Supreme Court will now reverse the erroneous legal decision that Police do not have reasonable expectation of privacy when performing their duties in public.

Ol' Froth said...

You DO realize that there is no right to privacy if you're in a public space, for ANYONE, don't you?

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

I wonder where I would get that crazy idea. ;)

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/07/judge-bars-release-any-california-based

"No, wingnuts, this is not suppression of free speech. It's called paying attention to whether you're allowed to surreptitiously record people without their consent. In California, you are not, "

http://blog.simplejustice.us/2015/08/05/the-reasonable-expectations-of-high-cops/
“All police personnel present had a reasonable expectation that their conversations were no longer being recorded and the undercover officers, feeling that they were safe to do so, removed their masks,” says the complaint, which was filed in Orange County Superior Court. “Without the illegal recordings, there would have been no internal investigation of any officer.”

Ol' Froth said...

And this is why you are an incredibly stupid person. There is a difference between public officials carrying out their duties in public, and private persons discussing matters on private property.

I'm astounded that you're able to function without drooling all over yourself.

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

Incredibly stupid Judges too
Ruling against private persons (Santa Ana officers) discussing matters on private property(Sky High Sky High Collective).
Judge rejects Santa Ana officers' attempt to block hidden camera video in pot-shop raid investigation
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/officers-678388-police-video.html

C&L is wrong. You can legally surreptitiously record people without their consent if they are in public.

Ol' Froth said...

Did you even READ the story you linked to???? The officers weren't in their locker room, they were conducting a raid on a business that uses security cameras, and the cameras captured their actions. The officers clearly knew they were being recorded, because they tried to disable the cameras, and missed one. To quote your own link: But in a three-page ruling released Wednesday, Orange County Superior Court Judge Ronald L. Bauer rejected the restraining order, stating that officers did not have a reasonable privacy expectation since they were on-duty at the time.

“While the officers have declared that they expected privacy, the court has concluded that they had no objectively reasonable expectation that their words and actions would not be observed,” Bauer wrote.

“They should not expect privacy in their on-duty performance of an official function at a marijuana dispensary. They have made no claim that their work required secrecy or that it would be impeded by public review.”


You remain a foolish, silly, and ignorant person.

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

"You remain a foolish, silly, and ignorant person."
Why don't you support your fellow Men in Blue?
https://reason.com/archives/2010/08/09/police-officers-dont-check-the
"You have 960,000 police officers in this country, and millions of contacts between those officers and citizens. I’ll bet you can’t name 10 incidents where a citizen video has shown a police officer to have lied on a police report," Pasco says. "Letting people record police officers is an extreme and intrusive response to a problem that’s so rare it might as well not exist. It would be like saying we should do away with DNA evidence because there’s a one in a billion chance that it could be wrong. At some point, we have to put some faith and trust in our authority figures."

Dayvoe said...

To counter the cake, Kalina cooked calf covered in cocoa and cookies (Kalina, not the calf).