HARRISBURG (PA)
The Inquirer
July 11, 2018
By Liz Navratil and Angela Couloumbis
The law firms and individual lawyers waging a fierce fight over a secret grand jury report detailing sexual abuse by Catholic clergy across the state have together donated more than $180,000 to the campaigns of the Supreme Court justices now weighing whether to release the report, records show.
Justice Debra Todd was the first to publicly disclose her contributions in court. In a filing late Tuesday, she acknowledged more than $23,000 was given to her campaign last year by attorneys, firms, or lawyers tied to them. Todd said she would consider recusing herself from the high-profile case if asked to do so.
Most of her colleagues on the high court have not done the same, despite also having accepted donations from lawyers now arguing before them, according to an analysis of campaign finance records from the Inquirer and Daily News and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. (Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy filed a similar disclosure Wednesday, after the newspapers asked about her donations and those to the other justices.)
Legal experts say the justices’ actions are not a surprise. They are not required to disclose the donations in court filings, as each is already recorded in campaign records. And if history is a guide, the money they took in is unlikely to prompt any to step aside.
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