Cortes v. Sprague: Ambiguous Ballot Question Splits the Court

Pennsylvania’s courts have been the site of an unusual amount of unfolding drama this year, from the sordid tale of Bill Cosby’s fall from grace to the strange fight over taped depositions that turned into a question of SCOPA quorums in Dougherty v. Heller. But Friday’s ruling that an ambiguous ballot question does not violate the Pennsylvania Constitution has been one of the most bitterly lamented of the year.

For the past two years, the General Assembly has been moving through the slow and methodical process of voting and re-voting for a Constitutional amendment to raise the mandatory retirement age of judges from 70 to 75. The question finally qualified to go to the voters of the Commonwealth. But the timing could not be much worse. The vote will come against a partisan backdrop in which Democrats have been winning big in judicial elections of late, and Chief Justice Saylor, the second to last Republican on the Court, turns 70 in December, and will be forced to retire if the amendment is not passed.

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