PA Supreme Court Justice Leaves Democratic Party Over Anti-Semitism

A Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice announced Monday that he has left the Democratic Party to register as an independent.

Justice David Wecht, who was retained by voters last November for a new 10-year term, said his judicial work has always been independent and that his voter registration will now reflect that status.

“I am confined to a judicial role, and in that role, I maintain independence at all times and in all respects,” Wecht said in a statement. “My voting registration now reflects my independence as well.”

The move shifts the partisan makeup of the state’s highest court from a 5-2 Democratic majority to a 4-2-1 split. Wecht had previously served alongside Chief Justice Debra Todd and justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, and Daniel McCaffrey in the Democratic majority, while justices Sallie Updyke Mundy and Kevin Brobson are the court’s two Republicans.

“Acquiescence to Jew-hatred is now disturbingly common among activists, leaders and even many elected officials in the Democratic Party,” Wecht said. “I can no longer abide this. So, I won’t.”

Wecht has a long history with the state’s Democratic system. He served as vice-chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party from 1998 to 2001.

Wecht, whose mother grew up in Norway under Nazi occupation, was elected to Pennsylvania Superior Court in 2011 and moved to the Supreme Court in 2015.

Below is Wecth’s full statement:

“The people of Pennsylvania elected me. They put their faith in me, and I reciprocate. I have faith in Pennsylvanians, and they deserve to know the following.

“In 1998, my wife and I were married at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Congregation, on whose Board of Trustees I served. Twenty years later, in the very same sanctuary where our wedding occurred, the worst massacre of Jews in American history was perpetrated. That terror came from the right. Jew-hatred has always festered on the fringe of that sector.

“In the years that have followed, that same hatred has grown on the left. Increasingly, it has moved from the fringe to the mainstream. It is the duty of all good people to fight this virus, and to do so before it is too late.

“My jurisprudence and adjudication have always been independent, and they always will be. Now, my voting registration reflects that independence as well. 

“From 1998 to 2001, years that preceded my judicial career, I served as Vice-Chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. In the quarter century that has passed since then, the Democratic Party has changed.  Nazi tattoos, jihadist chants, intimidation and attacks at synagogues, and other hateful anti-Jewish invective and actions are minimized, ignored, and even coddled.  Acquiescence to Jew-hatred is now disturbingly common among activists, leaders and even many elected officials in the Democratic Party.

“I can no longer abide this. So, I won’t. I am no longer registered within any political party.

“As a jurist, I always have, and always will, vindicate the legal rights that haters and extremists of all stripes enjoy in our country and in our Commonwealth. This is the land of freedom to which my mother and my father’s parents immigrated, seeking refuge and opportunity. They found it, and my mother and father were both proud to wear the uniform and serve in the armed forces of the United States. I have dedicated most of my adult life to public service in this nation and Commonwealth, and most of that to rendering impartial justice in the judicial branch.

“In Pennsylvania, and in the United States of America, we enjoy robust rights and liberties, bequeathed to us by our great Founders. These freedoms have helped to make this the greatest civilization that the world has ever seen. There have been other great civilizations in the past, and almost all of them have deteriorated and declined when Jew-hatred grew and metastasized. 

“We all should awaken now to what is happening. I am confined to a judicial role, and in that role, I maintain independence at all times and in all respects. My voting registration now reflects my independence as well. As Shakespeare’s Polonius told his Laertes: ‘This above all: to thine own self be true.’

“It is my hope that Pennsylvanians, and Americans, of all viewpoints and backgrounds will oppose and resist the scourge of Jew-hatred before it undermines what our ancestors have built here.”