Skip Navigation

GOP leaders throw cold water on justice impeachment plans

commcourt_600x340.jpg

The state Supreme Court building in Harrisburg. (Photo by AP)

 

(Harrisburg) — Despite getting national media attention, a GOP push to impeach most of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Supreme Court Justices probably won’t get much traction.

House leaders say they don’t plan to support the measure.  

A handful of House Republicans began calling for impeachment after the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court declared the state’s congressional map unconstitutional, and redrew it.

The new map is more favorable to Democrats.

The issue has now festered for more than a month.

Indiana County’s Cris Dush is the main sponsor. He said he thinks the justices “stripped the legislature of their sovereign authority to write legislation.”

But House GOP Leader Dave Reed said he and other leaders are wholeheartedly not on board–noting while they don’t agree with the court’s decision, impeachment is not the answer.

Reed’s spokesman, Steve Miskin, said the resolutions aren’t guaranteed committee votes.

And even if they get through at some point, he added, “seeing as the leader doesn’t seem apt to take it up, it’s not getting a vote on the floor right now.”

Chief Justice Thomas Saylor, one of two Republicans on the state’s high court, also condemned the impeachment resolutions.

He called them “an attack upon an independent judiciary.”

Support for WITF is provided by:

Become a WITF sponsor today »

Support for WITF is provided by:

Become a WITF sponsor today »

Up Next
Politics & Policy

Episode 47: Dang property taxes!