In a statement released Monday afternoon, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice David Wecht said he was changing his party affiliation from Democratic to Independent.
Wecht, who was elected by Commonwealth voters to a 10-year term last November, said his “law and jurisprudence has always been independent and always will be. Now my voter registration reflects that independence as well.”
On the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Democrats won a 5-2 majority, with Wecht joining the other justices Christina Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, Daniel McCaffrey and President of the Supreme Court Debra Todd. Sallie Updyke Mundy AND Brobson are Republican-elected Supreme Court justices. Wecht’s decision moves the proverbial balance to 4-2-1.
Wecht, a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, won election to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2011 and served until 2015, when he won election to the state Supreme Court. He is a son Cyril Wechtnationally recognized pathologist and longtime Allegheny County medical examiner, known for disagreeing with the single bullet theory of homicide President John F. Kennedy.
In November 2020, Wecht issued a ruling in the contesting lawsuit Joe Biden victory in Pennsylvania that efforts to overturn the election results were “futile” and a “dangerous game.”
Below is the text of Wecht’s statement.
“The people of Pennsylvania elected me. They put their faith in me and I reciprocate. I believe in the people of Pennsylvania and they deserve to know the following.
In 1998, my wife and I were married at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, on whose Board of Directors I served. Twenty years later, in the same sanctuary where our wedding took place, the worst massacre of Jews in American history took place. This terror came from the right. Hatred of Jews has always grown on the margins of this sector.
In the following years, the same hatred grew on the left. It is increasingly moving from the margins to the mainstream. It is the responsibility of all good people to fight this virus and do it before it is too delayed.
My jurisprudence and jurisprudence have always been and always will be independent. Now my voter registration also reflects that independence.
From 1998 to 2001, several years before my judicial career, I served as vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. In the quarter century since then, the Democratic Party has changed. Nazi tattoos, jihadist chants, intimidation and attacks on synagogues, and other hateful anti-Jewish slurs and actions are minimized, ignored, and even coddled. Agreement to hate Jews is now disturbingly common among activists, leaders, and even many elected officials in the Democratic Party.
I can’t stand it anymore. So I won’t do it. I am no longer registered with any political party.
As a lawyer, I have always defended and will always defend the rights of haters and extremists of all stripes in our country and our Community. This is the land of freedom where my mother and my father’s parents emigrated, seeking refuge and opportunity. They found it, and my mother and father were proud to wear the uniform and serve in the United States Armed Forces. I have devoted most of my adult life to public service in this country and this Commonwealth, and much of that time ensuring impartial justice in the judiciary.
In Pennsylvania and the United States, we enjoy solid rights and freedoms bequeathed to us by our great Founders. These freedoms helped make this civilization the greatest the world has ever seen. There were other great civilizations in the past, and almost all of them destroyed and collapsed as Jew hatred grew and metastasized.
We should all wake up now and see what’s going on. I limit myself to the role of judge and, in performing this role, I always and in all respects maintain my independence. My voter registration now also reflects my independence. As Shakespeare’s Polonius said to his Laertes: “This above all: be true to yourself.”
“I hope that Pennsylvanians and Americans, regardless of their perspectives and backgrounds, will stand up to the scourge of Jewish hatred and stand up to it before it undermines what our ancestors built here.”
