Pennsylvania, in a particularly unwise practice, elects their judges. On Tuesday, one of the winngers was not a Democrat or a Republican. He was a Whig.
Robert Bucholz, who Rhawnhurst voters chose as Judge of Election for the 5th Division in the 56th Ward, became the first Whig elected in Philadelphia in 157 years. He beat out Democratic candidate Loretta Probasco, who received 24 votes to Bucholz’s 36.
Talk about low turnout.
“As neither a Republican nor Democrat, in a city with a reputation for electoral dishonesty, I am an honest broker in administering elections,” Bucholz said Wednesday in an email. Bucholz, an engineer who spends most of his time working for defense contractors, said he first began identifying himself as a Modern Whig three years ago.
See why electing judges is nonsense? Here is a new judge whose experience is not in the law, but in engineering for a defense contractor.
First founded in America in 1833, the Whig Party promoted consensus and compromise over partisan politics. Though the party counted among its ranks many prominent figures, including four U.S. presidents, it was virtually disbanded by 1856 after the issue of slavery exposed deep fissures within its membership.
But the movement was revived about five years ago after a group of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans began meeting in response to what they saw as the divisive nature of the county’s partisan political system. They went on to found the Modern Whig Party, which Time Magazine in 2010 named one of America’s “Top Ten Alternative Political Movements.” The party now has a Washington, D.C. headquarters and counts 25,000 to 30,000 members across the nation, according to statistics from The Modern Whig Party of America’s website.
“A basic tenet of the party is pragmatism,” Bucholz said. “They believe that politics is all about compromise instead of getting everything you want and giving up nothing. The recent gridlock in Washington could not have happened under Modern Whigs.”