Like the appearance of new buds on tree branches, one sign of spring is the Allegheny County Democratic Committee endorsement. 

And just as those buds will eventually flower, an endorsement controversy may be about to bloom.

This Sunday, county commitee members will migrate to Heinz Field, just like birds winging their way from warmer climes. There they will roost and decide which Democrats to endorse in races up and down the ballot — from mayor down to district judge. 

With one exception. 

As you’ll see from the County Committee Web site, the endorsement in one particular race — the magisterial district judge for district 5-3-10 — will be decided at a special time, in a special location. Committee members from the Lawrenceville wards covered by this district will be making their pick on Saturday, at St. Mary’s Lyceum in Lawrenceville.

And who is running for this seat? The often-controversial head of Lawrenceville United, Tony Ceoffe.

Although they need not be lawyers, district judges rule on low-level neighborhood disputes of various kinds. And already CP has heard mutterings among some critics of Ceoffe, whose hard-fisted approach to neighborhood improvement has grated on some, even as others praise him for helping to engineer Lawrenceville’s efforts to turn itself around. And some doubters haven’t forgotten Ceoffe’s involvement in a dispute at a Lawrenceville polling place back in 2007.

Is Ceoffe getting special treatment?

Not so, says Jim Burn, chair of the county committee. The committee is holding a special endorsement, he says, because party officials didn’t realize until too late that there was going to be a race in Lawrenceville at all.

“We had this race down in our books for being held in 2011,” Burn says. (Indeed, the last time this seat was up for grabs was 2005, and magistrates serve 6-year terms.) Incumbent Eugene Zielmanski decided to step down (UPDATE: Zielmanski had to vacate the office because of age requirements; see comments below), but due in part to miscommunications with the Department of Elections, Burn says, “We weren’t made aware of the Lawrenceville race until we already put the candidates in the electronic voting machines.”

So Burn decided to hold a special endorsement meeting for this race alone, sequestering it from the regular endorsement process. He did so, he says, in part to avoid opening a “Pandora’s box” in which other candidates, who missed deadlines for seeking the endorsement in their races, would seek special treatment. 

So far, Ceoffe is the only person to have filed a letter of intent seeking the endorsement. Which means, of course, that Ceoffe is the only person who currently stands to benefit from this weekend’s only special endorsement process. Which, yeah, sounds a little suspicious even to a trusting soul like me.  

But Burn says that because of the snafu, the deadline for notifying the party has been extended in this race until tomorrow at 5 p.m. That is made clear on the party Web site, he points out. “One candidate in particular should get down there right away,” he said — referring to Susan Banahasky, who plans to oppose Ceoffe but who hasn’t notified the party of an intention to seek the endorsement. 

This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2009.

E-mail Chris Potter about this post.

4 replies on “Disorder in the court endorsement”

  1. Chris,

    Your information is not correct on the 05-3-10 Magisterial District Judge office ( the correct title, which prior was District Justice. There has not been an elected magistrate in Pennsylvania since the 50’s) Judge Zielmanski did not step down. Under the law in Pennsylvania when a Judge turns 70 (mandatory retirement age) in a judicial election year the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC) must declare the office vacant. They forward the information to the Pa. Dept. of State and in turn they notify the county election board to place the office on the ballot. The law was put in place in the 80’s to cut down on Judicial appointments. If the age of the Judge is not known, it has often been overlooked by the general public as well as the election board until the notification by the Pa. Dept of State. It rarely happens in Common Pleas races because the slots are monitored by many Attorneys, but has happened many times in the past in District Judge races and some appellate court races .

    Richard G. King, District Judge
    Past President, Special Court Judges Association of Pennsylvania

  2. Ack. I always get the title of this job screwed up … you’d think I would learn to double-check it before hitting the “post” button. I’ll change it in the text above.

    Thanks too for the clarification on the reasons for Judge Zielmanski’s departure.

  4. I follow along with the distinction in why this seat happens to be open. But does that have any conceivable bearing on the larger point, the “special” ACDC endorsement process for this one race for magistrate — of which Potter wrote “Yeah, sounds a little suspicious even to a trusting soul like me”?

    Or am I missing something.

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