Tag: Pennsylvania state government

Pennsylvania high court declines to decide mail-in ballot issues before election

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declined to step in and immediately decide issues related to mail-in ballots in the commonwealth with early voting already under way in the few weeks before the Nov. 5 election.

The commonwealth’s highest court on Saturday night rejected a request by voting rights and left-leaning groups to stop counties from throwing out mail-in ballots that lack a handwritten date or have an incorrect date on the return envelope, citing earlier rulings pointing to the risk of confusing voters so close to the election.

“This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election,” the unsigned order said.

Chief Justice Debra Todd dissented, saying voters, election officials and courts needed clarity on the issue before Election Day.

“We ought to resolve this important constitutional question now, before ballots may be improperly rejected and voters disenfranchised,” Todd wrote.

Justice P. Kevin Brobson, however, said in a concurring opinion that the groups waited more than a year after an earlier high court ruling to bring their challenge, and it was “an all-too-common practice of litigants who postpone seeking judicial relief on election-related matters until the election is underway that creates uncertainty.”

Many voters have not understood the legal requirement to sign and date their mail-in ballots, leaving tens of thousands of ballots without accurate dates since Pennsylvania dramatically expanded mail-in voting in a 2019 law.

The lawsuit’s plaintiffs contend that multiple courts have found that a voter-written date is meaningless in determining whether the ballot arrived on time or whether the voter is eligible, so rejecting a ballot on that basis should be considered a violation of the state constitution. The parties won their case on the same claim in a statewide court earlier this year but it was thrown out by the state Supreme Court on a technicality before justices considered the merits.

Democrats, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, have sided with the plaintiffs, who include the Black Political Empowerment Project, POWER Interfaith, Make the Road Pennsylvania, OnePA Activists United, New PA Project Education Fund Pittsburgh United, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and Common Cause Pennsylvania.

Republicans say requiring the date is an election safeguard and accuse Democrats of trying to change election rules at the 11th hour.

The high court also rejected a challenge by Republican political organizations to county election officials letting voters remedy disqualifying mail-in ballot mistakes, which the GOP says state law doesn’t allow. The ruling noted that the petitioners came to the high court without first litigating the matter in the lower courts.

The court did agree on Saturday, however, to hear another GOP challenge to a lower court ruling requiring officials in one county to notify voters when their mail-in ballots are rejected, and allow them to vote provisionally on Election Day.

The Pennsylvania court, with five justices elected as Democrats and two as Republicans, is playing an increasingly important role in settling disputes in this election, much as it did in 2020’s presidential election.

Issues involving mail-in voting are hyper-partisan: Roughly three-fourths of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania tend to be cast by Democrats. Republicans and Democrats alike attribute the partisan gap to former President Donald Trump, who has baselessly claimed mail-in voting is rife with fraud.

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October 7, 2024
Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting law is upheld again, as court rules against Republican challenge

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania state court on Tuesday rejected the latest Republican effort to throw out the presidential battleground state’s broad mail-in voting law that has become a GOP target following former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about election fraud.

It is the latest of several refusals by a state court to invalidate Pennsylvania’s 2019 mail-in voting law, enacted barely months before the COVID-19 pandemic began and Trump began attacking mail-in voting.

In the lawsuit filed last year, 14 current and former Republican state lawmakers said the court must invalidate the law because two earlier court decisions triggered a provision written that says the law is “void” if any of its requirements are struck down in court.

Gov. Josh Shapiro is trying to wrap up his first budget by Saturday’s start of the new fiscal year, as the Democrat works to balance Pennsylvania’s politically divided Legislature.

A Pennsylvania state trooper who was shot and killed earlier this month when he went to work on his day off after learning his barracks had been attacked by an armed man was lauded during his funeral as a hero who only wanted to serve his community.

Spurred on by train derailments, some states crisscrossed by busy freight railroads aren’t waiting for federal action to improve safety.

Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride says she’s running for the U.S. House of Representatives. Already the first openly transgender state senator elected in the country, she’d be the first trans member of Congress if she wins in November.

The law has a requirement that voters must hand-write a date on the outer envelope of their mail-in ballot in order for the ballot to be counted. The Republicans argued that the two earlier court decisions refused to enforce the hand-written date requirement — meaning the law should be thrown out.

But the Commonwealth Court, in a 24-page opinion, unanimously found that the court decisions did not invalidate “the dating provision” of the law. It dismissed the lawsuit, in favor of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration and the national and state Democratic parties.

Democrats hailed the ruling for protecting the opportunity to vote by mail. Shapiro’s administration said over the past three years, more than 7.5 million Pennsylvanians have voted by mail.

“We are pleased that today’s court ruling allows all eligible voters to continue exercising their fundamental right to vote using this secure, accessible method,” Shapiro’s administration said in a statement.

Greg Teufel, the lawyer for the 14 Republican lawmakers, said he expects to appeal to the state Supreme Court, which has twice upheld the mail-in voting law against previous Republican-backed challenges.

In an interview, Teufel said he disagreed with the court’s rationale, saying that the court is ignoring the plain language of the law.

“They’re sidestepping a critical issue, just pretending they don’t see it,” Teufel said.

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On Twitter, follow Marc Levy at @timelywriter.

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June 27, 2023
Philadelphia’s likely next mayor could offer model for how Democrats talk about crime

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Democrat who will almost certainly become Philadelphia’s next mayor wants to hire hundreds of additional police officers to walk their beats and get to know residents. She wants to devote resources to recruiting more police and says officers should be able to stop and search pedestrians if they have a legitimate reason to do so.

Those positions, particularly the search policies that have been criticized for wrongly targeting people of color, would seem out of step in a progressive bastion like Philadelphia. But Cherelle Parker trounced her rivals in this week’s mayoral primary with a message that centered on tougher law enforcement to combat rising crime and violence.

While local politics don’t always align with the ideological divides that guide the national debate, Parker’s victory offers a fresh case study for Democrats as they wrestle with how to approach the issue of violent crime, which increased in many U.S. cities during the pandemic and continues to be top of mind for voters across the country. The issue has divided Democrats from city halls to the White House, particularly over how much to rely on policing and incarceration to solve what many see as social problems, such as drug abuse and homelessness.

Parker, a former state legislator and city council member, argued that it’s a false choice to decide between investing in policing and addressing broader societal problems.

“It is not either/or,” the 50-year-old Parker said during the campaign.

That approach helped her defeat progressive rival Helen Gym by more than 25,000 votes. Gym, who advocated for measures including stronger police training and faster 911 response times, was backed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and appeared with the lawmakers at a rally on the eve of the election. Gym and her supporters blamed her loss, in part, on late attacks funded by wealthy donors who opposed her progressive policies.

The debate over policing intensified in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police prompted worldwide protests about policing and calls to defund police — a push that the GOP used against Democrats in 2020 elections. While Democrat Joe Biden won that year, some moderate Democrats said the party wasn’t quick enough to denounce it.

In major U.S. cities that are Democratic strongholds, voters also have been divided in recent years.

New York elected Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain who vowed to invest more in public safety, and San Francisco voters recalled a progressive prosecutor amid frustration about public safety. In Chicago, progressive Brandon Johnson — who favored investing in areas like housing and youth jobs — topped a more moderate rival who had support from the police union. And progressive prosecutor Kim Foxx, who prioritized violent crimes over lower-level offenses and faced blowback for dropping charges against actor Jussie Smollett, said she will not seek reelection.

In Philadelphia, Parker was the only Black candidate among the top tier of hopefuls on Tuesday and she was backed by majority Black precincts across the city in both early and Election Day ballots. In addition to 300 more officers, her public safety plan also called for fixing broken streetlights, removing graffiti and investing in programs for at-risk youth.

Parker also defended her support for “Terry stops,” or for officers to use “just and reasonable suspicion” to stop pedestrians. She and other candidates faced criticism including a protest at City Hall last month from those opposed to “stop and frisk.”

The policy has riled the city in the past, with critics saying it was used disproportionately against Black and Brown pedestrians. According to ACLU Pennsylvania, Philadelphia police nearly doubled the number of pedestrian stops during Mayor Michael Nutter’s administration in the 2000s. Civil rights lawyers said at least half of the more than 250,000 such stops in 2009 didn’t meet the legal standard, and almost none resulted in arrest. The ACLU sued to stop the practice, and monitors police use of stop and frisk under a settlement with the city.

“We want to build that relationship and we also want folks to know that there will be zero tolerance for any misuse and or abuse of authority,” Parker said in response to questions about her position. “But a proactive law enforcement presence is a key part of that plan, and I am unapologetic about it.”

Tuesday’s result suggests the salience of police reform may be subsiding from the days when people were protesting in overwhelming numbers, said Michael Sances, a political science professor at Temple University.

”(Crime) has crowded out concerns about overpolicing,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that people have become anti-reform, that can easily be surfaced. It’s just a sign of where the public’s attention is, and where political leaders have moved, and that’s really toward the center.”

Philadelphia saw a record number of homicides in 2021, most of them gun-related. That number fell from 562 to 516 in 2022, but was still significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels. On Wednesday, an 18-year-old was rearrested in Philadelphia after he escaped from a prison in the city along with another inmate. The man was being held on charges in four slayings.

But in a reminder that there’s no easy trend line on the political dynamics related to crime, voters in Pittsburgh made a turn to the left in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for county prosecutor. Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala, in office for nearly a quarter century, is trailing challenger Matt Dugan by double digits in unofficial returns, although Republicans launched a write-in campaign for him so the two could face off again in November.

Dugan, the county’s chief public defender, ran on a range of progressive policies, including eliminating cash bail, diverting low-level and nonviolent crimes, and emphasizing mental health and substance abuse treatment.

What happens in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh could have national implications as Pennsylvania will again be a prime battleground in 2024.

Biden has walked a difficult line on crime, policing and the communities that have been disproportionately impacted by both. The president has said it’s possible to bring down crime and also reform criminal justice and policing at the same time, though Republicans claim crime is up because of those reforms.

Biden often says he believes police need better tools and training, calling them heroes who do a difficult job. He’s also been vocal about the need to reform how policing has worked in Black and other nonwhite communities in the wake of the deaths of Floyd and other Black people killed by police.

This week, the Senate voted to overturn a local Washington, D.C. law enacted to improve police accountability that was backed by the district’s Democratic mayor. It was the second time this year that Democrats joined with Republicans to reject a D.C. measure amid high rates of crime. Earlier, Biden agreed with the GOP that some of the measures — such as lowering penalties for carjackings — went too far.

Biden was expected to veto this week’s vote, which would mean upholding the D.C. law, saying that while he doesn’t back all provisions in the D.C. law he does support “commonsense police reforms” that are part of it, such as banning chokeholds, limiting the use of deadly force and improving access to body cameras and requiring additional training.

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Burnett reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington and Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.

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Brooke Schultz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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May 17, 2023
State lawmakers turn to creative solutions in speaker fights

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — As Republican infighting debilitates Washington, lawmakers at some U.S. statehouses have managed to launch sessions complicated by similar GOP partisan divides or razor-thin margins of party control with a host of creative — if yet untested — solutions.

The approaches differ by state: a delicate working agreement here, a bipartisan truce there. “The commonality is the standing on the edge of the precipice,” said David Niven, an associate professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati.

America’s fiercely divided politics are not limited to national government, where Republicans won a threadbare majority in the U.S. House in November and elected Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker early Saturday on the 15th ballot.

In the states, a combination of factors — including an influx of Republicans from the far right — have contributed to an air of uncertainty in some places as state legislatures begin business. The nation’s shifting political sands left parties in some state legislative chambers with such small majorities that each unexpected departure or death might threaten a scramble for control.

In New Hampshire, for example, the 400-member House convened this week with Republicans holding a razor thin 201-197 majority, with two seats vacant. Slightly more Democrats than Republicans were absent last month when members chose their leader, though, which gave the GOP a bit of breathing room when it came to re-electing state Rep. Sherm Packard, of Londonderry, as House speaker.

“The voters have sent us here with a never before seen balance of partisan makeup,” Packard said. “The only way we can forge ahead and be successful in this environment is by working together.”

In his inaugural address Thursday, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu called the nearly even division a “awesome opportunity” for cooperation.

“And we have a speaker,” he said, referring to the chaos in Washington. “What a great civics lesson and challenge that we find ourselves in.”

The margin of control is even narrower in the Pennsylvania House, where the November election gave Democrats hopes of reclaiming the majority in the often bitterly partisan chamber after more than a decade.

Their 102-101 margin included one Democratic incumbent who died a few weeks before being reelected, however, and two others who resigned after winning election to higher offices.

The House’s top Republican is claiming majority status as a result and has sued to delay filling two of the vacancies. When lawmakers convened on Tuesday to take oaths of office and pick a speaker, the deadlock was broken only when all seven members of GOP leadership and nine other Republicans joined all Democrats to elect Democratic state Rep. Mark Rozzi, of the Reading area, as House speaker.

Rozzi promised to act as an independent, saying he would caucus with neither party.

“The speakership is a nonpartisan — and I want to repeat that, nonpartisan — officer of the House, entrusted with maintaining the integrity of the House,” he told reporters Tuesday night. “That will be my focus as speaker.”

Bipartisanship was also the byword in Ohio, which saw a surprising turn in its speaker’s race on Tuesday despite Republicans holding a formidable supermajority in the Ohio House.

Though Republican state Rep. Derek Merrin had appeared to seal the deal in a preliminary vote before the holidays, the conservative’s hopes were dashed at the last minute by a deal between more moderate GOP backers of rival Rep. Jason Stephens and the House Democratic caucus.

“I intend to listen, and I intend to be very open and receptive to all members of the Ohio House,” Stephens said after winning the speakership with more Democratic votes than Republican ones. “We represent all of Ohio.”

Political scientist Niven called Stephens’ election in Ohio “mountain-moving,” making a pivot away from the hyper conservative politics that the state has seen in recent years. Meanwhile, McCarthy’s efforts to appease his far-right detractors in Washington rather than to work with Democrats may leave GOP moderates in Washington wanting, he said.

“I think there is a lesson here that there are some very happy Republicans in the Ohio Legislature because they were willing to see beyond their own caucus, and there are Republicans in the U.S. House who, in the end, aren’t going to get what they want because they aren’t willing to take a few steps across the aisle,” he said.

Deal-making across party lines has long been a part of governing, including within state legislatures. In Alaska, state lawmakers have a history of crossing party lines to form majorities. In North Carolina, a notorious yet effective power-sharing deal for speaker was struck in 2003, allowing a Democrat and Republican to preside over sessions on alternate days.

House Republicans at the time included Rep. Patrick McHenry, who is now a congressman and one of Kevin McCarthy’s top lieutenants.

Criminal investigations later led GOP North Carolina Rep. Michael Decker, whose switch to the Democrats in 2003 caused a seat deadlock between the parties, to admit in federal court that he took $50,000 in exchange for supporting Democrat Jim Black for speaker. Decker received prison time, as did Black, who accepted punishment in state court for bribing Decker without pleading guilty to the charge.

This year, it remains to be seen whether unusual legislative deals are functional. In New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania, some typically routine operational issues have been rancorous — or left in limbo.

The all-important vote on Pennsylvania House rules for the next session did not take place, as it normally does, immediately after Rozzi was elected speaker. The House has yet to determine how many members of each party will make up committees, much less the members’ individual committee assignments.

Rozzi promised a bipartisan staff, but nothing has been announced.

Republican House Leader Bryan Cutler of Lancaster County, who argues his caucus’ total of 101 current members makes him majority leader, said the choice of Rozzi was “absolutely bipartisan in nature, and I think you saw that trend, kind of, across the country. I think that kind of bipartisanship is good, I think us taking that first step is good.”

Session dates and committee assignments also have not been announced in the Ohio House, where Stephens, the House speaker, was scrambling after his surprise victory to pick a leadership team, hire a staff and unify his caucus. Matters for the chamber — which must begin deliberations on Ohio’s two-year state operating budget soon — were potentially complicated Friday. That’s when the Ohio Republican Party’s central committee voted to censure the GOP lawmakers who joined Democrats in supporting Stephens. Champions of the move called their actions a betrayal.

In New Hampshire, lawmakers divided over proposed rules changes that reflected the dramatically divided House, including grappling with the extra importance of attendance over the next two years.

One rejected rule change would have allowed members unable to attend sessions because of illness to vote by proxy. Supporters argued that the change would help members stay healthy while also fulfilling their duty to constituents, but — even amid rising COVID-19 infections — the proposal failed.

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Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. AP reporters Becky Bohrer in Anchorage, Alaska; Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H.; and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.

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January 9, 2023
Police: 5 guns recovered after police chief killed, 2 hurt

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BRACKENRIDGE, Pa. — Authorities say five guns were recovered from a man shot and killed by police after a chase and gunfire that killed a western Pennsylvania police chief and wounded two other officers.

The police chief and another officer were shot blocks apart Monday in Brackenridge, an Allegheny County borough northeast of Pittsburgh, authorities said. The suspect was later shot and killed in Pittsburgh after he crashed a carjacked vehicle and exchanged gunfire with police, authorities said.

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the governor-elect, said slain Brackenridge Police Chief Justin McIntire “ran towards danger to keep Pennsylvanians safe — and he made the ultimate sacrifice in service to community.” The second officer was in stable condition with a leg wound and a third officer was hit by suspected shrapnel.

Allegheny County police said Tuesday that state police had tried to stop Aaron Lamont Swan Jr., 28, of nearby Duquesne, on Route 22 on probation violations involving weapons Sunday evening, but he fled.

Police said Harrison Township officers spotted him Monday and gave chase, and he fled again on foot. Police said he was spotted again about 2 p.m. Monday and officers from a number of departments pursued him for several hours through various neighborhoods.

Another foot pursuit began in Brackenridge after an officer spotted him about 4:15 p.m. Monday, and shots were fired in two locations that left McIntire dead and the Tarentum officer wounded in the leg. Police said Swan then walked into a home and demanded the inhabitant’s car keys, fleeing in the vehicle.

After multiple police departments and a SWAT team responded for the suspect now considered armed and dangerous, the stolen vehicle was spotted in Pittsburgh’s Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood. After a short pursuit the car crashed in the city’s Homewood-Brushton neighborhood and Swan again fled on foot into a wooded area.

While police set up a perimeter, Swan left the wooded area and ran into a housing development, firing at officers while fleeing, police said. Swan fired additional shots and police returned fire. Swan was declared dead at the scene. A Pittsburgh officer had a minor injury from what is believed to have been shrapnel, police said.

Five guns believed to have been used by Swan during the case were recovered, four in Brackenridge and one in Homewood-Brushton, police said. Allegheny County police will investigate the shooting of the suspect and turn their findings over to the county’s district attorney, authorities said.

On Monday evening, dozens of police cars lined the southbound lanes of Route 28 as a procession of officers brought McIntire’s body to the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office. Dozens of officers from departments across the county lined Pittsburgh streets as the procession passed, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

“He’s going to be sorely missed, there’s no doubt about that,” fire Chief Rick Jones said of McIntire on Monday evening, noting that McIntire grew up in the borough, The Post-Gazette reported.

“(He) loved his job, loved his community,” said Dave Miller, a firefighter and fire police captain with Pioneer Hose, told the Tribune-Review. “He was a hell of a guy.”

McIntire’s wife, Ashley, expressed heartbreak at her family’s loss. Describing him in a Facebook post as her best friend, she wrote that her entire world was gone “in the blink of an eye.”

“I am literally broken. I just want someone to tell me this nightmare is over … ,” she said. “I can’t even put into words how great of a person my husband was. He was my person. I love you with all my heart. Until we meet again.”

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January 3, 2023
Today in History: December 30, fire killed 600 in Chicago

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Today in History

Today is Friday, Dec. 30, the 364th day of 2022. There is one day left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Dec. 30, 1903, about 600 people died when fire broke out at the recently opened Iroquois Theater in Chicago.

On this date:

In 1813, British troops burned Buffalo, New York, during the War of 1812.

In 1853, the United States and Mexico signed a treaty under which the U.S. agreed to buy some 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico for $10 million in a deal known as the Gadsden Purchase.

In 1860, 10 days after South Carolina seceded from the Union, the state militia seized the United States Arsenal in Charleston.

In 1922, Vladimir Lenin proclaimed the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which lasted nearly seven decades before dissolving in December 1991.

In 1954, Olympic gold medal runner Malvin G. Whitfield became the first Black recipient of the James E. Sullivan Award for amateur athletes.

In 1972, the United States halted its heavy bombing of North Vietnam.

In 1994, a gunman walked into a pair of suburban Boston abortion clinics and opened fire, killing two employees. (John C. Salvi III was later convicted of murder; he died in prison, an apparent suicide.)

In 2004, a fire broke out during a rock concert at a nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 194 people.

In 2006, a state funeral service was held in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda for former President Gerald R. Ford.

In 2009, seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer were killed by a suicide bomber at a U.S. base in Khost (hohst), Afghanistan.

In 2015, Bill Cosby was charged with drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. (Cosby’s first trial ended in a mistrial after jurors deadlocked; he was convicted on three charges at his retrial in April 2018 and was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction in June 2021 and Cosby went free.)

In 2020, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said he would raise objections when Congress met to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, forcing House and Senate votes. President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to overturn his election loss in Wisconsin; it was his second unsuccessful appeal in as many days to the high court over the result in the battleground state. Dawn Wells, who played the wholesome Mary Ann on the 1960s sitcom “Gilligan’s Island,” died in Los Angeles at age 82 from what her publicist said were causes related to COVID-19.

Ten years ago: Recalling the shooting rampage that killed 20 first graders in Connecticut as the worst day of his presidency, President Barack Obama pledged on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to put his “full weight” behind legislation aimed at preventing gun violence. A tour bus crashed on an icy Oregon highway, killing nine passengers and injuring nearly 40 on Interstate 84 east of Pendleton.

Five years ago: A wave of spontaneous protests over Iran’s weak economy swept into Tehran, with college students and others chanting against the government. Forecasters issued winter weather advisories across much of the Deep South ahead of plunging temperatures expected as the new year arrived.

One year ago: In a phone conversation lasting nearly an hour, President Joe Biden warned Russia’s Vladimir Putin that the U.S. could impose new sanctions against Russia if it took further military action against Ukraine; Putin responded that such a U.S. move could lead to a complete rupture of ties between the nations. A wildfire driven by wind gusts up to 105 mph swept through towns northwest of Denver, destroying hundreds of homes and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee. (The wildfire would cause more than $2 billion in losses, making it the costliest in state history; it was blamed for at least one death.)

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Russ Tamblyn is 88. Baseball Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax is 87. Folk singer Noel Paul Stookey is 85. TV director James Burrows is 82. Actor Concetta Tomei (toh-MAY’) is 77. Singer Patti Smith is 76. Rock singer-musician Jeff Lynne is 75. TV personality Meredith Vieira is 69. Actor Sheryl Lee Ralph is 67. Actor Patricia Kalember is 66. Country singer Suzy Bogguss is 66. Actor-comedian Tracey Ullman is 63. Radio-TV commentator Sean Hannity is 61. Sprinter Ben Johnson is 61. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is 59. Actor George Newbern is 59. Movie director Bennett Miller is 56. Singer Jay Kay (Jamiroquai) is 53. Rock musician Byron McMackin (Pennywise) is 53. Actor Meredith Monroe is 53. Actor Daniel Sunjata is 51. Actor Maureen Flannigan is 50. Actor Jason Behr is 49. Golfer Tiger Woods is 47. TV personality-boxer Laila Ali is 45. Actor Lucy Punch is 45. Singer-actor Tyrese Gibson is 44. Actor Eliza Dushku is 42. Rock musician Tim Lopez (Plain White T’s) is 42. Actor Kristin Kreuk is 40. Folk-rock singer-musician Wesley Schultz (The Lumineers) is 40. NBA star LeBron James is 38. R&B singer Andra Day is 38. Actor Anna Wood is 37. Pop-rock singer Ellie Goulding (GOL’-ding) is 36. Actor Caity Lotz is 36. Actor Jeff Ward is 36. Country musician Eric Steedly is 32. Pop-rock musician Jamie Follesé (FAHL’-es-ay) (Hot Chelle (shel) Rae) is 31.

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December 29, 2022
Max Baer, Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s chief justice, dies

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PITTSBURGH — Max Baer, the chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, has died only months before he was set to retire, the court confirmed Saturday. He was 74.

Baer died overnight at his home near Pittsburgh, the court said in a news release. The court didn’t give a reason for his death but called his “sudden passing” a “tremendous loss for the court and all of Pennsylvania.”

The court said Justice Debra Todd now becomes chief justice “as the justice of longest and continuous service on the court.” She is the first female chief justice in the commonwealth’s history, a court spokesperson confirmed.

“Chief Justice Baer was an influential and intellectual jurist whose unwavering focus was on administering fair and balanced justice,” Todd said in the release. “He was a tireless champion for children, devoted to protecting and providing for our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.”

Gov. Tom Wolf ordered state flags at commonwealth facilities, public buildings and grounds lowered to half-staff, saying he was “extremely saddened” by the death of such a “respected and esteemed jurist with decades of service to our courts and our commonwealth.”

Baer, a Duquesne Law graduate, was an Allegheny County family court judge and an administrative judge in family court before he was elected to the high court in 2003 and became its chief justice last year. Baer also served as deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania from 1975 to 1980 and was in private practice before entering the judiciary.

Earlier this year, Baer was part of the 5-2 majority as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a wide expansion of mail-in voting in Pennsylvania.

Baer was set to retire at the end of 2022 after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75. The court said the seat had already been slated to be on the 2023 ballot, and “in the interim the governor may choose to make an appointment, subject to confirmation by the Senate.” Baer was elected as a Democrat and his death leaves a 4-2 Democratic majority on the high court.

Duquesne’s president, Ken Gormley, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Baer believed justices shouldn’t be public figures and that he therefore shied away from the limelight, using his position to uplift others in the profession.

“He was collegial, he worked really hard to have the court function as a family, and he led by example,” Gormley said. “He was the most caring person imaginable — always put others first and celebrated their successes. He hated pettiness. He had no time for pettiness.”

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October 1, 2022