Call them low-information races. Call them low-turnout elections. Just don’t call them boring.
Already this year, the slate of Democratic primary elections for local and state judgeships — which will be decided on May 20 (read up on all the races in our Primary Election Guide here) — has produced an unusual amount of spice and chicanery.
Typically, judicial races don’t generate much excitement — not from voters, and not from journalists. Philly turnout has averaged a paltry 16 percent since 2000 in primary elections featuring District Attorney as the headliner. And with all due respect to the occasional scandal, like the South Philly karate master who got tossed from the ballot in 2017, media coverage has been sleepy, too.
But there’s something special in the air in 2025 because, with several weeks still to go before the polls close, a list of colorful stories has emerged — including a leading candidate for Municipal Court who is paying down $200,000 in unpaid taxes to the IRS; a bizarre saga involving a different candidate’s snip-snap-snip-snap status on the ballot; and the next chapter of a petty (alleged) feud between Democratic Party boss Bob Brady and neighborhood groups.
There’s still plenty of time for these typically ho-hum races to get even more bonkers. Until then, though, we’ve compiled the storylines you need to know regarding Philly-based judgeships in the state and municipal court systems:
Mount Airy mystery
Mt. Airy is home to some of the city’s highest-turnout voting divisions. Candidates often flock there to campaign, especially in off-year elections when a few reliable votes can make all the difference. So it came as no surprise that more than a dozen judicial candidates signed up for an early April online forum being hosted by a couple of Northwest Philly neighborhood groups.
Then, things got weird.
According to the organizers, less than 48 hours before the event, the majority of the candidates pulled out, citing reasons like “an urgent family matter” and “accidentally overbooking.” But the organizers found evidence of something more coordinated at play: a mysterious letter slipped under their door, appearing to have been circulated among the no-shows: “Dear Endorsed Candidates,” it said, “There has been correspondence from Mt. Airy Dems and Vote the Ridge about a candidates event they are having … Don’t speak to them.”
The letter went on to describe the organizers — Vote the Ridge (based in Roxborough and Manayunk) and Mt. Airy Democrats — as “opposition groups” with a hostile view of ward leaders and Democratic Party leadership. “I’m asking you to not attend anything or correspond with these rump groups,” the letter read, just before a typed name at the end: “Sincerely, Bob Brady.”
When the organizers sent out a press release a couple weeks later, you could make out a conspiracy by reading between the lines. Brady, the Party Chairman and former Congressman, has been feuding with members of those groups for years, stemming from their individual backing of progressive candidates, some of whom have not been endorsed by the party. In 2023, Mt. Airy Democrats endorsed a primary challenger to City Councilmember Cindy Bass. The bad blood came to a head the next year, after Vote the Ridge and Mt. Airy Democrats supported a couple of Working Families Party candidates, Nic O’Rourke and Kendra Brooks, for City Council. Subsequently, Brady and ward leaders retaliated by stripping the heads of those organizations of their roles as volunteer get-out-the-vote committee people within the party.
This was about Brady extracting more revenge, right?
“It’s a forgery,” Brady says of the letter, speaking by phone. “I don’t know anything about a letter. They forged my signature.”
When asked who they were, Brady named both Vote the Ridge and Mt. Airy Democrats, before issuing a vague warning — “I’d be careful if I were you,” he says, hinting at the groups’ duplicity.
All the intrigue with the judicial elections this year, while fun, points to an obvious and ever-present question: Why are we electing judges at all?
Let’s state the obvious first, before returning to the mystery of who sent the letter. There’d be nothing illegal or flagrantly unethical about the Democratic Party making demands — errr, suggestions? — of party-endorsed candidates regarding how they spend time on the campaign trail. Most endorsements, especially in a one-party town, come with some strings attached — which, from time to time, can impact everything from how a candidate makes public appearances to how they approach messaging.
On the other hand, there should be more, not less, voter education and public opportunities to get to know candidates, because they’re good for democracy. So, was this undue interference? The optics of a secret letter might be excessively “cloak and dagger.” But it’s not exactly breaking news that a group that’s not aligned with the party doesn’t get access to party-backed candidates. It wouldn’t be the first time that Democrats fought with progressives. Since Bernie Sanders’ failed presidential bid in 2016, it’s been a consistent theme of party politics in the city.
The organizers, for their part, don’t entirely disagree. “We are not surprised at Brady, if he was behind this,” says Maurice Sampson, co-chair of Mt. Airy Democrats. “However, we are shocked at the judges.”
“I get the pressure’s on them, but they’re running to be judge,” says Rebecca Poyourow, the president of Vote the Ridge (and, along with Sampson, one of the former committee people who was booted from their elected role within the party). “One of the discerning characteristics of a judge is independent judgment. You’re supposed to stand up to external pressures.”
That’s especially true, says Sampson, given the backdrop of the controversies around judges at the federal level right now. “We really have to question if these are the kind of people we want on the bench,” says Sampson. “We deserve an explanation from the judges. They should apologize.”
Brady says the letter falsely bore his name. But if not Brady, then who? Could it have been one of the Northwest ward leaders who’d been rankled by these groups in the past? One of Brady’s underlings, to create plausible deniability? Or maybe it was someone from a progressive activist, trying to steer votes away from party-backed candidates?
After all, the forum ended up being dominated by outsider candidates, except for one exception. Brian Kisielewski, a candidate for Court of Common Pleas, was the sole party-endorsed candidate to commit and then show up. Maybe the most far-out theory: Was the letter a 4-D chess move by Kisielewski’s campaign?
We may never know. The Citizen reached out to all of the party-backed candidates, including Kisielewski, but none of them replied to voicemails and emails.
Oh, and I forgot one more theory: Maybe it was written by Vote the Ridge or Mt. Airy Democrats themselves? “No,” Poyourow says bluntly.
Missing nominees
Shawn Page, a partner at law firm Mincey Fitzpatrick Ross and one of the Democratic Party’s endorsed judicial candidates, is a frontrunner to land a seat on the bench of Municipal Court.
But according to a story in The Inquirer, Page’s resume also includes several years of tax delinquency and a rare public rebuke by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for his mishandling of a case. Now on a payment plan with the IRS, Page told the paper that his issues are not disqualifying — far from it. “I’m an everyday guy, with everyday issues,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, Page was issued a “not recommended” tag by the Philadelphia Bar. For every judicial election, the Bar vets judicial candidates and sorts them into three categories — highly recommended, recommended, and not recommended — based on a long list of criteria. According to the Bar: “11 stringent criteria, ranging from legal ability and trial experience to temperament, character and integrity and demonstrated dedication to the improvement of the quality of justice.”
Typically, judicial races don’t generate much excitement — not from voters, and not from journalists.
To earn a positive recommendation, candidates must voluntarily participate in the process, submitting writing samples and answering an extensive questionnaire. Then, a team of lawyers delves into other aspects of their record, such as disciplinary actions against them and their community involvement. Finally, a commission associated with the Bar votes by secret ballot to arrive at their final determination. (For a candidate to receive a “Highly Recommended” rating, for example, candidates need to receive 80 percent of votes in their favor.)
What is surprising about this year’s ballot is that Page’s low rating does not stand out. Despite three open seats on the Municipal Court, only one person — Amanda Davidson — earned a recommendation from the Bar. Since 2001, there has only been one other instance with as few “recommended” tags among the field of candidates. And that year — 2019 — had one vacancy to fill, making the dearth of support appear more reasonable.
After going through its own archives and checking with a former staffer, the Philadelphia Bar confirmed that this year is something of an anomaly. “2025 has the fewest number of [Municipal Court] candidates with a Recommended or Highly Recommended rating in the past two decades,” writes a spokesperson for the Bar.
What accounts for the lowly levels of support? Not a seismic shift to the Bar’s process, which has remained relatively consistent for decades. The city might just be hard up for quality candidates for the bench.
A huffing mess
Do you love Philadelphia more than you love your wife? That question was posed by a lawyer in the ongoing legal battle over Mike Huff — a candidate for both Municipal Court and Common Pleas Court — and reportedly elicited audible gasps in the courtroom.
Huff has been the subject of an intense and at times bizarre residency challenge, which is seeking to knock him off the ballot. The case surrounds the question as to whether Huff has legitimately established a bachelor-like lifestyle in Philly, even though he says he’s happily married.
PA law requires judicial candidates to live in their district no less than one year before a general election. Huff, who is originally from Northeast Philly, says that he lived in Bala Cynwyd until May 2024, when he moved to a property jointly owned by him and his wife in Mount Airy. Among the proof he’s submitted to the courts: testimony of tenants in the same building who said they’ve seen his car parked outside, heard his thumping footsteps at night, and witnessed him hogging the shared laundry machines.
Despite three open seats on the Municipal Court, only one person — Amanda Davidson — earned a recommendation from the Bar. Since 2001, there has only been one other instance with as few “recommended” tags among the field of candidates.
But a petition filed by a Democratic committeeperson, backed by Bob Brady, argues that Huff’s primary residence remains outside the city. The petition cites language in the election code which states “a residence” is where a candidate’s family lives, unless “the husband and wife have actually separated and live apart.” Huff’s wife is still living in the ’burbs.
While Huff’s attorney has argued that opponents are claiming a narrow and “sexist” view of the election code to torpedo an outsider candidate (Huff is backed by progressives, including District Attorney Larry Krasner) the residency challenge has proven to have legs.
On April 1, Commonwealth Court Judge Lori A. Dumas ruled in favor of the challenge, removing his name from the ballot on the grounds that he’d not sufficiently established a Philly residence. Weeks later, the PA Supreme Court struck down that ruling, temporarily restoring Huff to the ballot and sending the case back to the lower court. Just this week — on April 30 — Dumas re-reviewed the case, and reinstated her ruling. One piece of damning evidence the judge cited: “remarkably low” electricity bills by Huff at his apartment.
At the moment, Huff is officially off the ballot. “We believe the Commonwealth Court’s findings of facts are unsupported by credible evidence on the record and will be appealing this decision back to the PA Supreme Court,” Huff writes via email. “In a low-turnout election year when we should be engaging voters across the political spectrum to participate, the City Committee is spending its resources trying to kick me off the ballot and disenfranchising voters. Judicial elections matter.”
The back-and-forth has had ripple effects for the rest of the primary ballot. For one thing, it’s caused delays to the normal schedule within the Commissioners’ Office, which typically sends out mail-in ballots by mid-April and has been waiting for the Huff saga to end. And now that the Commissioners’ Office has gone ahead and printed out ballots — with Huff’s name on them — to mail by May 6, there’s uncertainty as to whether they’ll include an additional note to voters along with the ballots. (Also, according to The Inquirer, Huff’s name has been “locked in” to machine ballots).
All the intrigue with the judicial elections this year, while fun, points to an obvious and ever-present question: Why are we electing judges at all? Overwhelmingly, the bench is occupied by those who’ve donated to party faithful and done legal work for the party. Money, political connections, and an old Horn & Hardart coffee can play a bigger role than expertise or morality or common things we look for in elected officials such as relatability or media savvy, because of the fact that hardly anyone votes in these elections.
Surely, there’s a more sane way of bestowing judicial powers than the way we do it now.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Corrections: A previous version of this story misstated information about Vote the Ridge and Mt. Airy Democrats. Vote the Ridge is located in Roxborough and Manayunk; it did not endorse Seth Anderson-Oberman in 2023. Also, Maurice Sampson is the co-chair of Mt. Airy Democrats.
COVERAGE OF THE UPCOMING ELECTION