SHARON Labor leader urges votes for 4 judicial candidates

It's important to get judges elected who support labor, a spokesman said.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- Four labor-endorsed statewide judicial candidates didn't make it to a rally here Thursday, but that didn't stop labor leaders from seeking support for their campaigns.
Judge Max Baer, candidate for Supreme Court, and Judges John Driscoll, Seamus McCaffery and Jack Panella, seeking Superior Court seats, were supposed to be on a statewide election tour, but none of them were able to make it to a luncheon rally at the Rosemont Banquet Center.
All four are sitting common pleas court judges in their home counties and had to be back in court, said Richard Bloomingdale, secretary-treasurer of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, who spoke in their behalf to about 50 labor and Democrat political leaders.
All four of the candidates are Democrats.
It's important to get judges elected who support labor issues, Bloomingdale said. Rulings they make could affect everyone, he said.
Supported by labor
All four of the endorsed candidates are supporters of working families and have had labor support in their county-level elections, he said, urging those in attendance to get the vote out Nov. 4.
"It's critical that we elect these judges," Bloomingdale said, noting that labor went 0-for-7 in the last statewide judicial races and has been paying for the loss ever since.
Case after case is going against labor, he said.
"This is kind of the preliminary to the 'super bowl' next year," said Bill George, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO president, referring to the next presidential election.
No Democratic candidate can win the White House without winning Pennsylvania, George said.
Pennsylvania has lost 127,000 jobs over the last 21 months under the Bush administration, and 60 percent of them were union jobs, he said. Pennsylvania leads the nation in plant shutdown notices, and the United States has a $590 billion trade deficit right now, George said.
"We've got to turn this around," he said, adding that getting these four judicial candidates elected is a start.