Log In


Reset Password

Mundy, GOP incumbent, keeps Pennsylvania Supreme Court seat

HARRISBURG — A Republican justice kept her seat on Pennsylvania’s highest court Tuesday and voters approved a constitutional amendment that could eventually lead to property tax cuts.

Justice Sallie Mundy held off Allegheny County Judge Dwayne Woodruff, a former Pittsburgh Steeler, in what was the most closely watched race in an off-year election.

Mundy’s victory gave her a full 10-year term and meant Democrats were unable to add to their 5-to-2 majority on the high court.

Two other incumbent justices were retained for another decade in up-or-down retention votes.

Mundy, a resident of Tioga in the state’s northern tier, was a Superior Court judge when Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf nominated her and the Republican-controlled state Senate confirmed her to replace Justice Michael Eakin. Eakin stepped down early last year, nearly three months after being put on paid suspension to await an ethics trial for his role in a salacious email scandal.

The constitutional amendment gives legal authorization for state lawmakers to pass a law to let local governments exempt the full value of homes from taxes, replacing what had been a 50 percent cap on cuts.

The amendment itself did not reduce any taxes, and the Legislature may struggle to find revenue to replace the property taxes that currently generate billions for schools and other purposes.

Lower down the ballot, races were close for four openings on the state’s Superior Court, which hears intermediate appeals from county courts, and two openings on Commonwealth Court, which handles litigation in which state agencies are a party.

For many voters, the real interest was in local races, including mayor, district attorney, county executive, judges, local councils and boards. Turnout was a far cry from a year ago, when the state was a presidential battleground and featured a closely watched U.S. Senate race.

Philadelphia’s next district attorney will be Democrat Larry Krasner, a man whose career as a civil rights attorney led him to sue the city’s police department.

In York, Democratic Mayor Kim Bracey lost to the city council president, Mike Helfrich, a fellow Democrat who won the Republican nomination on the same day this spring that she beat him in the Democratic primary.

And in Allentown, the incumbent mayor, Democrat Ed Pawlowski, won a fourth term while he faces federal corruption charges, allegations he denies.

The Erie School Board is getting what’s described as the first openly transgender person to be elected in Pennsylvania. Clinical therapist Tyler Titus, a Democrat, won one of four open seats.

Democratic nominee Larry Krasner takes the stage after winning the election to be the next Philadelphia District Attorney in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
As the snow falls and temperatures drop into the low 30’s, a group of poll workers huddle around a heater supplied by Hazleton City council candidate Allison Barletta as they try to keep warm while working at voting ward 7 located at Most Precious Blood Church in Hazleton, Pa., Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Ellen F. O’Connell/Hazleton Standard-Speaker via AP)
Jeannette Werkmeister and Joe Janosik , both of Bethel Park, Pa., a Pittsburgh suburb, greet voters at the polling station at the Bethel Park Community Center as wet snow falls Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Darrell Sapp/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)