Judge McCaffery Must Win the PA Supreme Court Election on November 7

There is a critical election in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, November 7. The fate of our environment could hang in the balance, and so could the fate of the country. Judge Dan McCaffery (D) must win the PA Supreme Court election, as he is the only candidate who will protect our civil rights.

Jeff Yass, a professional gambler turned billionaire following early investment in TikTok, has spent over $2.7 million on Pennsylvania judicial races this year. The vast majority has gone to Judge McCaffery’s opponent, Carolyn Carluccio, who supports government restriction of women’s healthcare choices. Before the primary, her campaign website featured an anti-choice section, which was then deleted. She has contributed to and received support from extremist organizations that seek criminal penalties for women’s healthcare. Judge McCaffery has committed to upholding the law in Pennsylvania, as judges must—including women’s healthcare choices.

Local elections have always been important, but these last few years have reminded us of their national importance too. Many of us remember anxiously awaiting the ruling from the Florida Supreme Court following the 2000 election. While Bush v. Gore captivated the nation, Justice Scalia won an epic separation of powers battle—with all-too-public partisanship revealed by SCOTUS Justices—essentially deciding the outcome of the case before oral argument. Disregarding states' rights concerns and 80 years of Florida history, SCOTUS ordered Florida to stop counting every vote. (Fueling confusion, the reason was that the recount “threaten[ed] irreparable harm.”) The President selected by SCOTUS would go on to navigate a foreign terrorist attack on American soil and deploy several million Americans to war. More than a million post-9/11 veterans have "significant disabilities." Their families have borne great personal costs, and the taxpayers continue to bear other costs; a WWII veteran’s daughter who became a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School estimates that the cost of post-9/11 veterans’ care will soon exceed $2 trillion. ("The Long-Term Costs of United States Care for Veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars" by Dr. Linda J. Bilmes)

Quality state Supreme Court Justices would likely have framed their ruling more clearly. That would have prevented SCOTUS from being able to determine the 2000 election—and ensured that we the people did.

Pennsylvania is a critical battleground state. The most recent Presidential victory had a margin of 1.17% in Pennsylvania, with a voter turnout of 76.5%. Given the high stakes, the noise from radical conservatives before and after Election Day included filing lawsuits in the six key battleground states: Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Republicans are working to stack the deck now in Pennsylvania, such as by fighting against mail-in ballot reform. Pennsylvania is one of few states that require a secrecy envelope, votes mailed without one are legally invalid, and the vast majority of mail-in votes in PA are for Democratic candidates. Eleven Republican members of the PA House of Representatives voted in favor of no-excuse absentee voting, then two years later, sued to overturn it. They won in front of Republican-appointed appellate judges, then lost in front of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Legal battles have already been teed up for the 2024 election.

Though Carluccio has voted by mail several times, as Pennsylvania law allows, she opposes vote by mail. Judge McCaffery has committed to upholding Pennsylvania law, including the right to vote in person or by mail.

Judge McCaffery is the clear best candidate for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He is the only candidate who will protect voting rights and freedom from government interference in healthcare choices. He is the only candidate we can rely on to protect our environment, which Pennsylvanians voted to protect more than 50 years ago with the Environmental Rights Amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution.

The Clean Air Action Fund is proud to endorse Judge Dan McCaffery without reservation.

Liz Green Schultz is the Political Director of the Clean Air Action Fund and a proud graduate of Temple Law School.