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Thursday, November 05, 2009
Courts - In Pennsylvania, "Women begin to dominate state appellate courts"
That is the headline to this story today, reported by Debra Erdley, in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Here is a quote from the middle of the story:
In a state where outraged voters ousted a Supreme Court justice four years ago amid anger over a legislative and judicial pay raise, Orie Melvin repeatedly told voters she returned her raise to the state Treasury every month for the past four years."Voters in the Keystone State understand the pay raise and understand that the high bench was involved in engineering it," DiSarro said. He said it was a populist issue that tapped into lingering voter resentments, as well as the voter anger evidenced in so-called Tea Party rallies this year.
Political scientist and pollster Chris Borick of Muhlenberg College said repeated wins for women on statewide courts, where female candidates took four or five appellate court positions in 2007, suggests gender could be a factor to some voters.
"It seems like there's more than just happenstance. When women voters don't have a lot of other prompts to affect their decision, gender might be a key factor," Borick said. But he noted the court election results are an anomaly in a state that has never elected a female governor or U.S. senator and usually ranks among the lowest in the nation in terms of female legislators.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 5, 2009 11:03 AM
Posted to Courts in general