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Opponents of Elliott Deceitful
Posted
10-29-2001
With a very short time until Election Day, it is appalling to see the
underhanded actions of the opponents of Judge Kate Ford Elliott in the race
for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Rather than the Republican Party
directly attacking Judge Elliott, they are using some non-profit
corporations to do their dirty work. What is so despicable, besides the
complete inaccuracy of the ads, is that they are circumventing
Pennsylvania's election laws.
Our laws require entities
that want to advertise to influence the outcome of elections to be
registered as political committees. That is done because contributors to
those committees must be identified. The effort to have undisclosed
benefactors of non-profit corporations buying advertisements to influence
elections is deceitful and apparently illegal. Just this week, Allegheny
County Judge Paul Lutty ordered the advertisements of the Law Enforcement
Alliance, a non-profit corporation from northern Virginia be pulled from the
television. Isn't there some irony in a group called the Law Enforcement
Alliance running illegal advertisements?
The fact that the non-profit
isn't even from Pennsylvania makes the whole deal even more troubling. We
not only have an organization whose contributors are unidentified trying to
influence an election, but the corporation isn't even from our state. Why is
that group interested in who gets elected to the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania? Does anyone really believe the Republican Party of
Pennsylvania is not connected to such an effort?
After all that has happened
in this country recently, there appeared to be an opportunity for politics
to become more positive. For candidates, particularly in judicial elections,
perhaps, there was an opportunity to have an honest debate over
qualifications. Instead, the campaign of Judge Elliott's opponent, the
Republican Party, and their non-profit front groups are attempting to
undermine any honest debate.
I can only hope voters take
the time to study the credentials of the candidates. Judge Kate Ford Elliott
has been on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania for twelve years and has a
distinguished record of writing opinions overwhelmingly supported by her
colleagues. Her opponent Michael Eakin is also on the Superior Court, but
has only been there a few years. He's really trying to use his previous
experience as a District Attorney as the reason people should vote for him.
Because he doesn't have the record as a jurist that Kate Ford Elliott has,
he's trying to use prosecutorial experience as somehow being important to
being on the highest appellate court in the Commonwealth.
Nice try Mr. Eakin, but the
Supreme Court does much more than hear appeals of criminal cases. But, this
style of campaigning is what Republicans have been using for years to win
appellate court positions for several years. They distort the record of the
Democrats and try to sell their own experience as being critical to the job.
At least in the past, it was the candidate's campaign, or the Republican
Party, that did the dirty work. Now, they're letting an out-of-state
non-profit sling the mud.
This time, I think they've
gone too far. Apparently, the courts think so too. I hope the voters will
send a message to the Republican Party that circumventing the election laws
of Pennsylvania is unacceptable and that voters want to elect the best
candidate to our highest court. That candidate is Kate Ford Elliott. |
