Totalitarian Pennsylvania Update. (Part Three)

Lancaster Ignorancer-Urinal: Activists target Gorbey

Two notable reform activists are pushing Pennsylvania voters to send 67 judges — including a Lancaster County jurist — out of office on Election Day.

Russ Diamond, who heads PA CleanSweep, and Gene Stilp, leader of Taxpayers and Ratepayers United, say the judges — ranging from the Supreme Court to county courts of common pleas — unfairly received pay raises from the Legislature in 2005.

Visit PACleanSweep for a list of the ne'er-do-wells in your neighborhood.

On their hit list is Judge Leslie Gorbey, the second woman ever to serve on Lancaster Court of Common Pleas, who faces a retention vote on Nov. 6.

Monday, Gorbey echoed the opinions of Pennsylvania Bar Association, Lancaster Bar Association and many newspaper editorials across Pennsylvania, saying the law prohibits judges from hiking their own pay.

"As a county judge, we didn't have any say. We didn't have any role in the entire matter of the pay raise," Gorbey said. "It's the role of the Legislature to deal with compensation."

Jim Thomas, chairman of the Lancaster Bar Association's judiciary committee, said the movement is "single-minded."

Darn right, shyster.

"I wonder if they know Judge Gorbey," Thomas said. "They seem to be judging judges very unfairly and in a way they would not like to be judged."

He is absolutely correct. If I stole money from the taxpayers, I would not want to be caught or punished either. Thanks for putting that in perspective, genius.

Thomas said 246 of 269 bar members in an anonymous poll voted recently to retain Gorbey for another 10-year term.

And 4 out of 5 dentists choose Dentyne.

"When over 90 percent of the people vote to retain, that's as clear of a signal as you can get from the people who know her, work with her and are judged by her," Thomas said.

Diamond, however, said the pay raise violated the state constitution, and he slammed Gorbey and other judges who did not give back the extra money they received.

"In our book, her support, her obedience, to the constitution comes first," he said. "If she's not doing that, how can we trust her to follow any other law?"

Exactly!

Gorbey is one of 60 county judges up for retention. One Supreme Court justice, three Superior Court and three Commonwealth Court judges also are seeking new terms.

Voters are asked a simple yes-or-no question on the ballot about retaining a judge.

"The idea of a retention election is to allow the judges to keep out of the political fray and to allow voters to evaluate judges based on the judges' performance," Gorbey said.

Nice try, sweetie. You injected yourself into the political fray and now you will pay the price.

The judicial pay raise came in 2005 as part of a bill that also raised legislative pay. The bill generated considerable outrage among constituents, which prompted legislators to repeal it.

The bill raised the pay of common pleas judges $14,000 annually, according to published reports. A common pleas judge now makes $152,115.

Although lawmakers rescinded the bill, the state Supreme Court last year upheld the constitutionality of the judicial raise, saying the state constitution prohibits the Legislature from reducing judges' pay.

"At the end of the day, the court that dealt with it and the court that had jurisdiction said it was properly done," Thomas said.

Diamond, though, said the pay raise bill originally was designed for another purpose — to make sure employees of the governor's office didn't make more money than the governor. Legislators gutted it, rewrote it and passed the pay raise without giving enough time for the Senate and House to debate it.

The manner in which they passed it violated provisions in the state constitution, Diamond said.
"The average citizen … sees our elected officials in the three branches not giving a hoot about the law we've laid down for them, the constitution," Diamond said.

"This takes us one step closer to lawlessness and anarchy."

Gorbey said she asks voters to look beyond the pay raise debate and to judge her record as a family court jurist.

"They will be fair to me," she said. "I'm very prompt with my decisions. I give people a fair shake to bring in their cases."