email this
print thisSAVE AND SHARE
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Gov. Rendell's appellate nominees benched
HARRISBURG - Four vacancies on Pennsylvania's appellate courts, including one on the Supreme Court, will remain unfilled for now, stuck in a partisan dispute.
The Senate's majority Republicans yesterday defied Gov. Rendell and Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille and rejected four men nominated by Rendell to temporarily fill the openings.
Twenty-four senators, three of them Republicans, voted in favor of the nominations, while 26, all Republicans, voted against. A two-thirds majority vote is necessary to confirm a judicial nominee.
The Democratic governor has insisted that the nominees are highly qualified.
Rendell had tapped James Gardner Colins, a Democrat from Philadelphia and former Commonwealth Court president judge, for the Supreme Court; James Fitzgerald and Robert Daniels, two Philadelphia Republicans, for Superior Court; and Ken Gormley, a Democrat from Pittsburgh, for Commonwealth Court.
Castille, a Republican, also endorsed the candidates and warned that the vacancies were hindering the Supreme Court's work.
Republicans voting in favor of the nominees were Stewart Greenleaf of Montgomery County, John Eichelberger of Blair County, and Jeffrey Piccola of Dauphin County.
