In Pa. high court races, cash didn't equal votes

Money helped, but it did not guarantee wins in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race.

At $1.5 million, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Kevin Dougherty was the top fund-raiser in the 12-way campaign, according to financial documents made public Thursday.

And while the Democrat did win nomination in the May 19 primary, correlations between cash and votes were hard to find.

Jefferson County Court Judge John Foradora, with $712,805 - about $6 for each vote cast for him - had the second-biggest money pot, but the Republican lost.

Superior Court Judge Christine Donohue of Allegheny County, who had the second-smallest campaign war chest among the six Democrats with $363,689, about $1 per vote, won. Donohue focused her spending on direct mailing to likely Democratic voters, said Marty Marks, her campaign manager, and spent no money on TV advertising.

"We just felt confident that if we could reach the voters we knew were going to vote - that is the ones we mailed to - we knew we would be successful," he said.

Superior Court Judge Judith Olson, also of Allegheny County, was the top Republican vote-getter, although she raised several hundred thousand dollars less than the other GOP winners, Adams County Court President Judge Michael George and Commonwealth Court Judge Anne Covey of Bucks County.

A deciding factor evidently was party endorsement; only Donohue won without one.

"This time, if you look at the races, party endorsement trumped everything," said Lynn Marks, executive director of the watchdog group Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts. "Everybody who was party-endorsed won."

The six remaining candidates are competing for three open seats on the state high court. Those elected serve for 10-year terms. Including in-kind donations, contributions to the 12 candidates have exceeded $5 million.

With five months until the general election, some candidates face the need to replenish their funds.

Dougherty reported spending all but $134,000 of his contributions, which were bolstered significantly by unions, particularly the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

His brother John is an influential member of that union. George, the top Republican fund-raiser, had less than $100,000 of $581,000 remaining after the primary. Superior Court Judge David Wecht of Allegheny County, a Democrat, reported just $9,000 in cash available. Toward the end of the primary race his campaign received a $100,000 loan from his father, Cyril, a well-known forensic pathologist.