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PNN's General Election 2023 Endorsements

Please consider PNN’s Endorsements and Recommendations below as you complete your mail-in ballot or when you enter the voting booth.  For your convenience, please see this link for our PNN Canvass Flier that has information in compact form that you can take into the voting booth with you.  The General Election is an opportunity to reshape the city we love.  Your vote is important!

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Council At-Large

You can only vote for five At-Large Candidates. We strongly urge you to vote for:

  • 2 Working Families Candidates: 

    • KENDRA BROOKS (BALLOT #426)

    • NICOLAS O’ROURKE (BALLOT #427)​

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For more than 50 years, the two “minority” party seats on City Council have gone to the Republicans. And they have used those seats to block progress for working families whenever they could. Four years ago, Kendra Brooks from the Working Families Party won one of the two minority seats. 

This year Kendra is running for reelection, joined by fellow Working Families Party candidate Nicolas O’Rourke. Both are strong supporters of progressive, democratic values. Ten elected officials - including Gov Josh Shapiro, Sen John Fetterman, State Rep Chris Rabb and State Sen Art Haywood - have endorsed one or both of their candidacies, as they believe Kendra and Nic would be far better than the Republicans who are running for the two minority seats. 

Note that to vote for the WFP candidates Kendra Brooks & Nicolas O’Rourke, you can only vote for three Democrats, since voters can only cast ballots for five At-Large candidates. However, past experience shows that all five Democratic candidates are virtually assured of victory, given the 7-1 voter registration advantage Democrats have over Republicans. 

In the last election, the Democrats who finished in first through fifth place all won more than 3 times as many votes as Brooks, who finished sixth, displacing a Republican.

Given these voting margins – which have been essentially the same for decades - voting for the Working Families candidates - Brooks and O’Rourke - can only defeat the Republican candidates. All five nominated Democrats will win overwhelmingly.

  • Our 3 Endorsed Democratic Candidates:

    • RUE LANDAU (BALLOT #128)

    • KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON (BALLOT #127)

    • ISAIAH THOMAS (BALLOT #126)

Appellate Court Judges

The stakes could not be higher!

In recent years our Supreme Court’s Democratic majority has been a bulwark against Republican efforts to gerrymander our Congressional and State legislative districts, to limit the use of mail-in ballots and to underfund our public schools. Republicans have not given up!

  • PA SUPREME COURT: JUDGE DANIEL MCCAFFERY (Ballot #101). We strongly endorse Judge Daniel McCaffery because he will protect a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions and every Pennsylvanian’s right to vote, as well as protect funding for public schools and our environment. He will reinforce the Democratic majority on the Court. He is “Highly Recommended” by the PA Bar Association (“PBA”). 

  • PA SUPERIOR COURT: TIMIKA LANE (#102) & JILL BECK (#103).  Their election will ensure a Democratic majority on the Court. Both are PBA “Highly Recommended”.

  • PA. COMMONWEALTH COURT: MATT WOLF (#104). He will increase the Democratic presence on the Court. He is PBA “Recommended”.

Judicial Retention

Vote "NO" for JUDGE PAULA PATRICK, due to her association with Q-anon proponents and support for Trump. 

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Vote "NO" for JUDGE ANNE MARIE COYLE who sent about half the people whose probation she revoked from 2015-2018 to state prison, the highest rate of any judge in the city.  This included people guilty of low-level crimes.  Further she lacked judicial temperament as she repeatedly abused her discretion due to personal issues with the defendant or the prosecutor.

Ballot Question

Vote YES on creating an Office for People with Disabilities.  This is an office that will focus attention and advocate for people with disabilities.

Recommendation for the Rest of the Candidates

We recommend that our members support the Democratic candidates (except for voting for the two WFP Council candidates which was addressed above) as we believe we need to run up the vote against the Republican Party because it is a danger to our democracy.

We hope that these endorsements and recommendations help you in your voting this year. Together, we can move the city forward to provide equity and opportunities for all.

PNN Canvass Vol for Kendra Brooks at Len

Our Endorsement Process

  1. We begin in the late Fall before a Primary election to find out who has declared candidacy for key state and local elections. We have sometimes encouraged individuals to run for office.

  2. We present all candidates with a lengthy questionnaire tailored to the office, current issues and our policy initiatives.

  3. After reviewing candidate responses, we invite each applicant to meet with small groups of our knowledgeable senior members to explain their responses and why we should endorse them.

  4. On occasion we will sponsor candidate forums to allow a larger audience to hear from the candidates directly.

  5. After meeting all applicants for endorsement, our interviewer groups pool their notes, discuss what they have learned from the written and in-person responses and make a presentation to the Steering Committee.

  6. The Steering Committee will then send endorsement recommendations via the internet to our members along with the materials submitted by the candidates.

  7. The membership then votes on a slate

  8. After tallying the vote, we inform the candidates and the public of our endorsement.

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