Max Baer
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Max Baer (Democratic Party) was a judge of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He assumed office on December 26, 2003. He left office on September 30, 2022.
On October 1, 2022, the state Supreme Court announced that Baer had died. The court also announced that Justice Debra Todd, who was set to replace Baer in January after he retired, would now serve as chief justice.[1]
Baer first became a member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court through a partisan election. He was first elected to the court in 2003. To read more about judicial selection in Pennsylvania, click here.
On April 1, 2021, Baer was sworn in as chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He succeeded former Chief Justice Thomas Saylor, who stepped down the same day in preparation for his retirement in December 2021.[2]
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[3] Baer received a confidence score of Mild Democrat.[4] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
In 1971, Baer graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Arts, and in 1975, he graduated with a J.D. from Duquesne University School of Law. From 1985 to 1986, he attended Robert Morris College for credits in the masters of tax program.[5] Prior to his service on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, he was an administrative judge on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. From 1980 to 1989, he worked as an attorney in private practice, and from 1975 to 1979 he was a deputy attorney general with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office.[5]
Elections
2013
Baer was retained to the Supreme Court with 71.0 percent of the vote on November 5, 2013.[6][7]
Bar Association rating
The Pennsylvania Bar Association recommended Baer for retention.[8]
2003
Baer was elected to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Campaign contributors
Baer raised $1,608,597 in his 2003 campaign for the court. The Pennsylvania Democratic Party was the largest single contributor with $233,500, or 14.52% of the total giving.
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[9]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[10]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
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Max
Baer
Pennsylvania
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Democrat - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Democrat as of 2020
- Received donations from Democrat-affiliated individuals or organizations
- Endorsed by Democratic-affiliated individuals or organizations
Partisan Profile
Details:
Baer ran as a registered Democrat for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Pennsylvania Democratic Party donated $233,500 to his campaign. He was endorsed by the AFL-CIO, and the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
Other Scores:
Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)
In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.
Baer received a campaign finance score of -0.53, indicating a liberal ideological leaning. This was more liberal than the average score of -0.02 that justices received in Pennsylvania.
The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.[11]
Noteworthy cases
Wolf v. Scarnati (2020)
Wolf v. Scarnati: On July 1, 2020, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against legislative Republicans in favor of Gov. Tom Wolf (D), upholding his ability to maintain COVID-19 shutdown orders. The lawsuit stemmed from Wolf’s March 6, 2020, emergency disaster proclamation, which he renewed on June 3, 2020. On June 9, 2020, the Pennsylvania General Assembly adopted a concurrent resolution, HR836, seeking to terminate the disaster emergency, which was not presented to the governor for approval or veto. The governor did not comply. Three Republican state senators filed a complaint in the Commonwealth Court, asking the court to command Wolf to comply with their resolution by "issuing an executive order or proclamation ending the state of disaster emergency." Wolf asked the state supreme court to exercise extraordinary jurisdiction, thus removing the case to the high court. The state supreme court held that HR836 was a legal nullity because the Pennsylvania Constitution required that concurrent resolutions relating to emergency declarations be presented to the governor for approval or veto. As the General Assembly did not do so, the court refused to order Wolf to end the shutdown, stating, "The Pennsylvania Constitution does not empower the legislature to act unilaterally to suspend a law, and the Governor’s purported suspension of law did not violate the non-delegation doctrine." Justice David N. Wecht wrote the court's opinion, which Justices Max Baer, Debra Todd, and Christine Donohue joined. Justice Kevin M. Dougherty filed a separate opinion, concurring and dissenting in part.[12]
No retroactive increase in sex offender registration periods
In Commonwealth v. Muniz, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) could not apply retroactively to a defendant who was found guilty of a sex-related crime before the legislation took effect.[13] The court ruled that SORNA’s registration requirements constituted a criminal punishment and that the ex post facto clauses of the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions prevented the state from punishing defendants beyond what the law allowed at the time of his or her crime. Justice Baer joined the majority opinion.
State supreme court judicial selection in Pennsylvania
- See also: Judicial selection in Pennsylvania
The seven justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court are selected in partisan elections.[14]
Justices serve 10-year terms, after which they must run in yes-no retention elections if they wish to remain on the court. A separate part of the ballot is designated for these elections, and justices' names appear without respect to party affiliation.[14][15] To learn more about these elections, visit the Pennsylvania judicial elections page.
Qualifications
To serve on the supreme court, a justice must:
- have state residence for at least one year;
- be a member of the state bar; and
- be under the age of 75.[14][16]
Chief justice
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court chooses its chief justice by seniority; the title is held by the longest-serving justice on the court.[14][17]
Vacancies
In the event of a midterm vacancy, the governor appoints a successor who must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Pennsylvania Senate. Interim justices stand for election at the next municipal election occurring more than 10 months after the vacancy occurred.[14]
By tradition, appointed interim judges of the supreme court, superior court, or court of appeals do not go on to run for permanent seats. In other words, the governor appoints these judges with the expectation that the judge will only fill the interim vacancy.[14]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
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Footnotes
- ↑ Pennsylvania Supreme Court, "Pennsylvania Supreme Court Announces Passing of Chief Justice Max Baer," October 1, 2022
- ↑ Penn Live, "Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor to relinquish Pa. Supreme Court’s top post months before he retires," March 1, 2021
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Pennsylvania Unified Judicial System, "Honorable Max Baer," accessed July 7, 2021
- ↑ Pennsylvania Department of State, "2013 Municipal Election," accessed July 7, 2021
- ↑ Politics PA, "Castille to Seek Retention; No Supreme Court Race in 2013," January 14, 2013
- ↑ The Pennsylvania Record, "Pa. Bar Assoc. recommends four state appellate court judges for retention," September 13, 2013
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
- ↑ Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, "Wolf v. Scarnati: Opinion," July 1, 2020
- ↑ Pennsylvania Supreme Court, "Commonwealth v. Muniz", July 19, 2017
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: Pennsylvania," archived October 3, 2014
- ↑ The Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania, "In Re: Nomination Papers of Marakay Rogers, Christina Valente and Carl J. Romanelli," November 7, 2006
- ↑ 2018 Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, "Title 42, Chapter 33, Section 3351," accessed August 25, 2020
- ↑ The Pennsylvania Code, "Chapter 7. Assignment of Judges," accessed September 3, 2014
Federal courts:
Third Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Western District of Pennsylvania • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Western District of Pennsylvania
State courts:
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania • Pennsylvania Superior Court • Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court • Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas • Pennsylvania Magisterial Districts
State resources:
Courts in Pennsylvania • Pennsylvania judicial elections • Judicial selection in Pennsylvania
