Legal News

Brady: Ward Leaders Backing Citywide Slate

By Brian Harris

By Amaris Elliott-Engel
Of the Legal Staff

Tuesday's primary election in Philadelphia will put to the test Democratic City Committee Chairman Bob Brady's effort to make the committee's endorsement of judicial candidates mean something and cut down on the number of side deals between judicial candidates, political strategists and ward leaders.

Brady said today it appears that the city's 66 Democratic ward leaders are keeping their promise to back the same seven candidates for the Court of Common Pleas and the same four candidates for Municipal Court.

Even in independent, progressive wards who only wanted to support candidates with "recommended" ratings from the city's bar association's rating arm, those wards backed the majority of this year's slate, Brady said.

Nine of the 11 candidates backed by the Democratic City Committee for Municipal Court and the Court of Common Pleas were rated "recommended" by the Philadelphia Bar Association's Judicial Commission. Two weren't.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on May 18, 2009 (boomark / email).