Voters Will Decide Whether Pa. Supreme Court Justices Stay On: What You Need to Know

Election day is tomorrow, Nov. 4. On Pennsylvania ballots, voters will decide whether to retain three Supreme Court justices: Justices David Wecht, Christine Donohue, and Kevin Dougherty.

Radio Catskill spoke with Kadida Kenner, founding CEO of voting rights organization New Pennsylvania Project about why court elections matter and what’s at stake this November. Here’s what you need to know.

READ: Check out Radio Catskill’s 2025 Elections Voting Guide

What’s on the ballot

Kenner says Pennsylvanians will likely see five judges and justices standing for retention on their ballots: three on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, one on the Commonwealth, and one on the Superior Court. Depending on where in the state you live, you may also see court elections in municipal and magisterial courts on the ballot.

Pennsylvania is one of only seven states in the country where voters decide on judges and justices in partisan elections. “We’re very powerful, and so we need to make sure we know what it is that we’re doing on Election Day so we can feel good about the decision that we’re making and not skip over any of the elections on our ballot,” said Kenner.

Justices on the state’s highest appellate court hear cases on some of the state’s most important issues, including voting rights, access to abortion, public education, and clean air and water.

The three Supreme Court justices up for retention have each served on the bench for about a decade and are asking voters for another 10-year term. If justices are retained, justices serve their terms until they reach the age of 75 before they are removed from the bench.

If Pennsylvanians voted to not retain Supreme Court justices, it would create vacancies in the courts. The only time voters decided not to retain a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice was in 2005 when Justice Russell M. Nigro lost his retention election after a midnight pay increase for the legislature and other government branches. “Pennsylvanians [were] very upset about that happening and took their anger out on the next person on the ballot, which happened to be Justice Nigro in that year.”

“The only other way for those spots to be filled would be our next judicial election [in] November 2027,” said Kenner. “They would not be installed until January 2028, which means we would have vacancies on our Supreme Court of Pennsylvania for more than two years, and I’m sure gridlock would ensue.”

READ: Pa. election 2025: A complete guide to Supreme Court retention candidates from Spotlight PA

Pennsylvania’s most expensive retention election

This year’s retention election is the most expensive retention race in Pennsylvania’s history, with election spending slated to exceed $15 million.

“Because an anti-retention campaign was launched in 2024 at the end of 2024 – initially supported by the financing of Elon Musk and now supported by Pennsylvania’s richest man, billionaire Jeffrey Yass – now this judicial election is getting lots of notoriety, and the amount of money is astronomical,” said Kenner.

Democrats have since poured millions of dollars into the race following the Republican-led anti-retention campaign. The three Supreme Court justices up for retention all voted in 2018 to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2011 congressional map, ruling it was unconstitutional. The former map was widely criticized as being one of the worst gerrymandered maps in the country that Kenner says some are still upset about.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day. Find your polling place on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s website.

Image: Exterior of Pennsylvania’s State Capitol (Photo Credit: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania)