Trade group files complaint against Shapiro’s ad for Supreme Court retention candidates

In mid-October, the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association (PMA) formally requested that the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board investigate campaign activities performed by the three State Supreme Court justices now seeking retention.

Democrats Christine Donohue, David Wecht, and Kevin Dougherty are campaigning to remain on the commonwealth’s high court for the next ten years. A decade ago, the jurists won partisan elections against Republicans. This year, voters will decide simply whether to keep the three on the bench in a yes-no vote — retention elections don’t entail head-to-head contests.

PMA, a trade group representing the Keystone State’s manufacturing sector, specifically takes issue with Donohue, Wecht, and Dougherty vis-à-vis the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The emissions cap-and-trade system functions as a tax on power plants’ greenhouse gas discharge, putting upward pressure on consumer energy prices.

In November 2023, a majority-Republican Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court struck down RGGI on the grounds that it imposed a tax that never received legislative approval; former Governor Tom Wolf (D) issued an executive order the previous year to join the pact between now eleven northeastern and mid-Atlantic states that would effectuate the policy. After the Commonwealth Court denied Wolf the ability to make that move unilaterally, his Democratic successor Josh Shapiro appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

PMA’s ethics complaint concerns the retention candidates’ relationship with the governor inasmuch as the justices are campaigning with Shapiro’s explicit endorsement, despite his RGGI appeal pending before them.

“I hope you’ll join me in voting ‘yes’ to retain justices Donohue, Dougherty, and Wecht,” the governor said in a video advertisement. “They’ve proven we can count on them to protect a woman’s access to abortion and birth control, and stand up for all our freedoms. Vote ‘yes’ for a Supreme Court that protects us.”

The investigation request, filed by PMA President and Chief Executive Officer David Taylor, takes further issue with another ad in which Dougherty, speaking for the slate, vaunts their having “held big corporations accountable when they hurt working people.” Taylor observes that numerous organizations representing large corporate interests, including his own association, have filed court briefs expressing opposition to RGGI.

These developments, Taylor reasoned in his filing, result in a conflict of interest that violates Chapter 39 of the Pennsylvania Code, which forbids a judicial candidate from “stat[ing] his views on disputed legal or political issues” and “indicat[ing] what his decision would be should a particular case or type of case come before him.”

“It is inappropriate under the Pennsylvania Code for Justices Wecht, Donohue, and Dougherty to align publicly with Gov. Josh Shapiro in a campaign ad while he has a case pending before them, as this suggests they may be favorable to him in their ruling,” Taylor wrote. “Further, it is inappropriate for the justices to suggest in a campaign ad that they ‘held big corporations accountable’ when the same case pending before them involves big corporations.”

While the actual ethics complaint is straightforward and trim, the president of the PMA offered a more candid view apart from the filing. 

“The justices know that they are being compromised by allowing the governor to do this for them,” said Taylor. “And in the exact same way, I’m sure the governor understands that he is — what he’s doing is not proper, is not ethical, and that, to the appearance of the public, it looks as though he’s attempting to influence jurists who have a case before them that he himself has brought. So again, none of this is ethical. None of this is proper. It’s all happening in broad daylight.”

Both the governor’s office and his campaign office did not respond to emailed requests for comment. 

Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports

Bradley Vasoli is the senior editor of The Independence. @BVasoli.