Posted: Friday, 22 May 2009 11:43AM
Time To Pay The Piper
Steve Corbett Reporting
Friday, May 22, 2009
With Tuesday’s primary election behind us, the November campaign cycle is off and running. We’ve got six months to decide whom we’ll vote for in the big one that seems so far away but is already bearing down on us like a runaway Laurel Line locomotive.
And I do mean loco.
I’m not saying that what happened this week at the polls was insignificant to Northeastern Pennsylvania.
No way.
Voters from Scranton to Wilkes-Barre to Hazleton and beyond cast their ballots to select and reject candidates who wanted desperately to be a Democratic or Republican nominee for public office.
Voters in Luzerne County chose judicial candidates, approved a home rule study commission, and selected the members of that commission who will create a model for good government that future voters will approve or reject. Voters also decided who will run in the many municipal elections that will fill positions in small towns throughout the region.
Lackawanna County voters also chose judicial candidates and picked nominees for offices small and large.
Incumbent Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty won the Democratic nod and likely will win the Republican nomination through write-in votes. That will effectively end Republican Bob Bolus’ mission to beat Doherty in November.
Or will it?
Judy Gatelli and Sherry Nealon Fanucci, two Doherty allies who lost their bids for their party’s nomination on Scranton City Council, can campaign as write-in candidates. It’s a long-shot, but desperation fuels last-ditch attempts.
After all, that’s how Papillion escaped from Devils’ Island.
Bolus might very well mount a write-in campaign as well.
But it doesn’t look good for the three election losers.
The biggest two races in the region will pit two women against male opponents in their bids for judicial seats in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties.
Tina Polachek Gartley in Luzerne County and Margaret Bisignani Moyle in Lackawanna County claimed upset victories this week as they fought the system that has traditionally spurned women on the bench.
No women judges currently sit on the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas.
Ann Lokuta once ruled from that bench, but a court of judicial discipline recently removed her after a trial that many voters believe was stacked against her. Lokuta continues to fight to regain her position of power.
Gartley is one of three candidates battling for two seats.
Moyle is facing off against Frank Castellano, who, like Moyle, is an assistant district attorney in Lackawanna County.
These judicial races are billed as non-partisan, a claim that is nonsense. Any judicial candidate or sitting judge who tells you otherwise should be immediately removed from public service and never given the chance to ever again run for public office.
Too many lies rule coal region politics. If the judicial races are non-partisan, why must candidates run as Democrats or Republicans? Why not run as true non-partisans?
Home rule study commission candidates ran as real non-partisans. And independent voters were allowed to vote for them in a primary that otherwise bans everyone but registered Democrats and Republicans.
Candidates must stop trying to hoodwink voters. Judges and judicial candidates really should know better. And those who don’t wise up will be voted down or out.
That message should be received loud and clear by the four incumbent county judges – two in Lackawanna County and two in Luzerne County – who want to be retained by a yes or no vote in November.
They need to get out from their plush chambers and start answering questions right now. For too long, sitting judges took for granted that they would be automatically honored with another 10-year term.
Those days are gone, boys. Two of your colleagues – two former Luzerne County president judges – are headed to federal prison after pleading guilty to taking kickbacks.
The people want more and deserve more than your self-absorbed sense of entitlement.
So get ready to start singing for your supper.
We’re calling the tunes this time.
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