Roy Cohn, the mafia lawyer who nurtured Donald Trump’s contempt for the rule of law, once infamously stated, “Don’t tell me the law, tell me who the judge is.” This corrupt perspective served Trump well as he successfully kept himself out of jail by stacking the courts with unethical and partisan judges.

On Nov. 4, Pennsylvania voters will have the opportunity to vote YES or NO on the retention of three Supreme Court justices, one Superior Court justice, and one Commonwealth justice. These justices have served Pennsylvania admirably for the last decade. As another justice recently said, “they have restored competence, honor, and ethics to our courts.”

Sadly, MAGA Republicans in Pennsylvania are currently plotting to deny the retention of these justices in order to run extreme MAGA candidates for those seats in 2026.

A Bucks County billionaire is already spending a small fortune priming voters to vote NO on retention. Elon Musk has also contributed $1 million to take out judges up for retention even hiring a full-time MAGA operative for this purpose. Undoubtedly, we will see a barrage of TV ads later this year in a MAGA smear campaign.

Sitting justices are considered non-partisan and will not have a party designation after their name on November’s ballot even though they were elected as Democrats.

It’s never too soon to inform voters of MAGA’s anti-democratic efforts to stack our courts. This fall, vote YES to retain Justices David Wecht, Kevin Dougherty, Christine Donahue, Alice Beck Dubow and Michael Wojcik.

George Polycranos, Port Matilda