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Doris Smith-Ribner running for US Senate
Submitted by Marc Stier on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 10:07pm.
Former Commonwealth Court judge Doris Smith-Ribner is running for Senate.
Her campaign appears to be just getting underway.
I don't know that much about her except that she is from the Pittsburgh although I think she has lived in Mt. Airy for some time. I don't know much about her positions on the issues.
But I can tell you from personal experience she was a smart, firm, and fair judge. She was the judge when Rosita Youngblood tried to knock me off the ballot in 2004. I was impressed not just with decision, with the how thorough and well written her opinion was but also with how she ran the trial.
Obviously her lack of name recognition makes this a tough race. It's not clear how much money she can raise.
But I have a feeling that she is, at the very last, going to make it a more interesting race.
She also ruled that the PA Consitution
requires equitable funding for all students by the state, a position, unfortunately, not agreed to by the PA Supreme Court. I believe she also voted, in the minority, in several decisions to uphold Philadelphia Home Rule against legislative attacks. She seems to be a principled liberal, who would, I believe, reliably advance progressive goals if she could ever get the financial traction to put together a realistic campaign.
She was a great judge
Judge Smith-Ribner has written a few Commonwealth Court zoning and land use cases and she consistently upheld the law, which often meant reversing politically-driven local decisions. I respect her work on the bench.
Casino Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Yes she is by all accounts a great judge for many reasons.
But there is something sadly laughable about the fact that somone qualifies to be considered a great judge in this state because she "consistently upheld the law." Wouldn't that be the minimum we requires of judges in something other than the Banana Republic (or Casino Commonwealth) of Pennsylvania?
her funders
It will be interesting to see if Sen Specter's funders help her.
Lance Haver
She's a great judge
But I'm not sure if that translates into being a great candidate or a great Senator. I've had the opportunity to hear her stump speech. The problem is: she doesn't have one.
She spoke for almost 30 minutes about her old cases. Interesting stuff... if you're talking to law students. But she really needs to work on her messaging. Fundraising will be a problem for her too.
But she still is a great judge. I wonder why she's running.
running for US Senate 2010?
It's less than six months from the primary. She doesn't even have a fleshed out website. Something doesn't add up here. I'm suspicious.
Very Interesting stuff
She sounds like a great judge. Possibly a great appointment to the Federal judiciary someday (cough, cough). Does not seem like this campaign for Senate is ready for primetime yet, which does raise serious questions about its vialiblity on what will no doubt be a very expensive race for the primary winner.
Maybe Arlen will have a heart attack late in the campaign and then suddenly throw his support behind her. Oh wait that was a different election.
-Sean
Can we do a PA blogger exchange for the election?
This is out of nowhere, but i had an election idea...
since all the gubernatorial candidates are regional and nobody knows a damn thing about them, we should have a PA statewide guest blogger exchange! Get Pittsburgh bloggers on here to talk about Onorato or Wagner, and then maybe Dan can go on some blog in Scranton and talk about his favorite topic of 2007, Tom Knox. etc etc. It would be fun and get new voices in.