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Heard in the Hall

PA Supreme Court Keeps Rizzo, Tasco & Tartaglione on Ballot

Philadelphia City Hall and political coverage from the Philadelphia Inquirer City Hall bureau.

13 comments

PA Supreme Court Keeps Rizzo, Tasco & Tartaglione on Ballot

POSTED: Friday, April 29, 2011, 5:38 PM

Marcia Gelbart

The suspense is over and the 2011 primary ballot is official:

City Councilmembers Frank Rizzo and Marian Tasco, and City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione are all within their legal rights to seek re-election - in spite of their participation in the city's controversial DROP pension program.

Just after 5 p.m., the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a one-page opinion affirming the ruling of Common Pleas Court Judge James M. Lynn that the three elected officials can run for for office.

However, Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille - a former Philadelphia district attorney who once ran for mayor - and Justice Thomas G. Saylor both disagreed with the opinion, issuing a nine-page dissent.

Saylor, who wrote the dissent, said he would have invalidated the nominating petitions submitted by Rizzo and Tasco, who in December will have to officially retire for one day before collecting six-figure lump-sum checks. Taking advantage of the same legal loophole, Tartaglione already did just that.

“Under these circumstances, I would find that Appellees’ supposed ‘retirements’ amount to a mere pretense, or sham, designed solely to obtain the lump-sump DROP benefit involved and then to continue on in the same position as before,” Saylor wrote .

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13 comments

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Comments (13)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:53 PM, 04/29/2011

I really don't get why they are allowed to be in DROP, or how they can retire for a day.

— Northeaster

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:47 PM, 04/29/2011

FINE...... let them remain on the ballot. Just don't vote for them..... WE THE PEOPLE will have the final word

— MDiBo

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:52 PM, 04/29/2011

So the Republican dominated PA Supreme Court decided this? I thought that anything Republican could do no wrong. I can't wait to hear and see the comments from our knuckle dragging friends weighing in on this decision.

— SoundGround

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 4:26 PM, 04/30/2011

Castille disagreed with the decision.

— Falls Ed

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 2:26 AM, 04/30/2011

How is Ron Castille not disbarrred?

— pmorse

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 5:38 AM, 04/30/2011

Comes to no surprise that Castille of the Meehen Republican Party machine, would walk in step with their Democratic brethren's in Philadelphia!!!!!!!

— Dadair1

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:55 AM, 04/30/2011

I don't know how these three little pigs sleep at night. Tasco, Rizzo and Tartaglione have no integrity and no concept of the common good. They simply don't care about the people they work for and are greedy, self-serving parasites. Send them home on election day. Vote out all incumbents.

— Serpico

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:53 AM, 04/30/2011

Marion Tasco u greedy PIG u will never be council president go ahead make ur deals with sanchez, green, nutter, blondumb, jim vitetta kenney u are not getting 9 votes u greedy old pig

— the commodore

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:46 PM, 04/30/2011

Someone please close this loophole.

— EAvila

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:46 PM, 04/30/2011

Someone please close this loophole.

— EAvila

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 4:31 PM, 04/30/2011

People have been criticizing the DROP feature of the city's pension plan for a long time. We can't afford such a generous plan. Why hasn't the DROP feature been repealed yet?

— Falls Ed

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:30 AM, 05/01/2011

Castille should be disbarred. As for the others, it's called an election.... they can be removed.

— jzgirl

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 1:39 PM, 05/02/2011

Someone please explain to these commentors about 'dissenting opinions' ... or at least reading comprehension??? Castille said NO to the allowance of the crooks on the ballot!!! The court said yes, and Castille disagreed! LEARN TO READ - this is part of why Philly politics is so screwed up; the voters can't even read a simple 6th-grade-reading-level article.

— citylumberjack