The LuLac Edition #3631, November 2nd, 2017

STATE JUDICIAL RACES
SUPERIOR COURT 

DEMOCRATS

CAROLYN NICHOLS

Carolyn Nichols from Philadelphia was elected as a county judge in 2011 and serves in the court's Criminal Trial Division of Major Trials. Before joining the bench, she was co-counsel for a 2009 lawsuit against a suburban Philadelphia swim club that denied minority children access to its facility.

MARIA MCLAUGHLIN

Judge McLaughlin currently serves as the co-chair on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas FYI Committee and as the current vice-president of the Nicholas A. Cipriani Family Law American Inn of Court. She has on numerous occasions participated on judicial panels and has lectured for the Philadelphia Bar Association, the Delaware County Bar Association, PA Trial Lawyers Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute. Judge McLaughlin has appeared as a guest on local television and radio shows to discuss a variety of family law topics.

DEBORAH ANNE KUNSELMAN

In November 2005, Judge Deborah Anne Kunselman became the first woman ever elected to the Court of Common Pleas of Beaver County. Elected twice to the bench, Judge Kunselman has presided over family, juvenile and civil cases, including several multi-million-dollar jury trials. She has decided many employment cases, including cases where she upheld appeals from labor arbitration awards. In one important case, she awarded back-pay and reinstated an employee in the health-care industry, who was terminated for refusing mandatory overtime. One of her significant contributions as a trial court judge has been to implement Act 53 in Beaver County; this process allows parents of a minor, suffering from addiction, to petition the courts to force their child to attend inpatient drug and alcohol treatment.

GEOFF MOULTON

Geoff Moulton was sworn in as a judge of the Pennsylvania Superior Court in August 2016, after being nominated by Governor Tom Wolf and unanimously confirmed by the Pennsylvania Senate. His term extends through the end of 2017.
Judge Moulton has devoted the bulk of his career to public service, developing a broad range of experience that serves him well as an appellate court judge. In addition, Judge Moulton was chief counsel to Vice President Biden’s successor in the United States Senate, Ted Kaufman, where he worked on the creation of the Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court nominations of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagen; chief of staff at the office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), where he worked to recover bank bailout money; and most recently, first deputy general counsel to Governor Wolf, where he successfully defended in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court the Governor’s temporary moratorium on the death penalty.

REPUBLICANS

WADE KAGARISE

Wade A. Kagarise is a judge on the Blair County Court of Common Pleas in Blair County, Pennsylvania. He was elected on November 5, 2013, effective January 2014, for a term that expires in 2023 Kagarise ran for election to the Blair County Court of Common Pleas.
Primary: He received 39.9 percent of the vote in the Republican primary on May 21, 2013. He also cross-filed as a Democrat, but lost that primary with 30.9% of the vote.  He won in the general election on November 5, 2013.

CRAIG STEDMAN

As District Attorney, Craig launched the Lancaster County Elder Abuse Protection Unit and Task Force to assist and protect our seniors.
Additionally, Craig established a Special Victims Unit and worked with the courts to form a Veterans Court to ensure our patriots are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.
Craig was born in Lawrence County, raised in Bucks County and now lives with his wife and children in Lancaster County.
After graduating from the University of Delaware and Penn State Dickinson School of Law with high academic honors, Craig served as an officer in the United States Army Reserves.
Craig has served as a committee member on the Republican Party of Pennsylvania since 2014 and a local committeeman for the past ten years

EMIL GIORDANO

Emil Giordano is a judge on the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas in Pennsylvania. Giordano was first elected to the court in 2003. He successfully ran for retention in 2013 for a term that will expire in 2023. Giordano ran for election to the Pennsylvania Superior Court in 2015. He won the Republican primary but was defeated in the general election.

MARY MURRAY

 Judge Mary Murray has served as a Magisterial District Judge for the past 13 years. During this time, she has ruled on thousands of civil, criminal, traffic, and non-traffic cases.
Judge Murray has practiced law for over 20 years specializing in estate planning and administration. She is a member of the Pennsylvania, Florida, Allegheny County, and Beaver County Bar Associations.
Judge Murray graduated from Duquesne University with multiple degrees. She earned a B.S./B.A. in Marketing in 1992, a Masters in Business Administration in 1995, and a Juris Doctor degree in 1996.
Judge Murray is a former member of the Women’s Business Network, Financial Women International, Pittsburgh Women in Commercial Real Estate, Vectors Pittsburgh, & the West Hills Area Women’s Club.

GREEN PARTY

JULES MERMELSTEIN 

Jules Mermelstein, a PA lawyer since 1980, decided that the best use of his skills to resist the forces attempting to deprive people of their Constitutional and legal rights based on their religion, country of origin, race, sexual orientation or any other irrelevant demographic is to run for an appellate court judgeship as a candidate of the Green Party of Pennsylvania. 
Throughout US history there have been times when forces have tried to deprive people of their rights based on irrelevant demographics. In the late 1700s, the Alien and Sedition Acts targeted those whose national origin was French. In the mid-1800s, the American Party, known as the "Know-Nothings", tried to restrict rights to white male Christians (which in their view did not include Catholics) from western Europe ancestry. The US Supreme Court in 1857 infamously stated that black men had no rights that white men had to recognize. In 1896, the US Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" is constitutional. In the 1920s and the 1950s there were "Red scares" with the 1920s accompanied by the Palmer Raids and the 1950s with McCarthyism and the House UnAmerican Affairs Committee. The early 21st Century is beginning with discrimination against those who are Muslim or are from the Middle East and localities who choose to follow the Constitution instead of seizing people when there is no probability they are violating any law.

(ballotpedia, LuLac, AP)