Why tracking spending in this year’s critical Pa. Supreme Court retention races is so difficult

Blame it on a mix of lagging reporting, weakly enforced rules and a campaign finance system that requires little transparency.

By STEPHEN CARUSO and KATIE MEYER Spotlight PA

HARRISBURG — How much are state and national groups spending to flood the airwaves, fill mailboxes, and buy up digital ads ahead of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention elections?

That’s a harder question to answer than you might think, thanks to a mix of lagging reporting, weakly enforced rules, and a campaign finance system that requires little transparency.

Many groups are trying to sway voters through independent expenditures — money spent without coordinating with the candidates’ campaigns. These expenditures are often made by groups that can’t legally give to candidates, including dark money nonprofits that don’t have to disclose their donors.

Judges don’t face opponents during retention elections. With no candidates to invest in, Republican- aligned groups instead turn to this kind of spending.

Backers of the judges up for retention may opt to make independent expenditures, rather than donate directly to campaigns, because of the messaging freedom it gives them (judges themselves are prevented by law, for instance, from promising to rule a certain way).

As of Tuesday afternoon, a few days after the most recent filing deadline, the Pennsylvania Department of State’s public log showed $1.6 million in independent expenditures to influence the Supreme Court retention elections. Most of that spending was done by the American Civil Liberties Union “to raise awareness” about the races.

But that total didn’t include information from some of the committees that Spotlight PA has observed spending money on TV, digital, and mail ads.

Citizens for Term Limits, a new nonprofit opposing the sitting Democratic justices, has made almost $90,000 in digital ad buys, according to Meta’s Ad Library. Both Citizens for Term Limits and the nonprofit Commonwealth Partners, which share a Harrisburg address, have funded mailers that urge voters to term-limit the court’s justices or invoke high-profile sexual abuse cases on which the court ruled.

Commonwealth Partners is organized as a 501(c)6 dark money nonprofit that doesn’t disclose its donors. It administers two political action committees funded almost exclusively by conservative billionaire Jeff Yass.

It’s unclear how Citizens for Term Limits is organized; because it is spending on politics, it is likely either a 501(c)6 or a 501(c)4 that doesn’t disclose donors.

Gina Pope, a spokesperson for Commonwealth Partners, told Spotlight PA, “Everything was filed last week.”

“We don’t have any control over the efficiency of either the USPS or Governor Shapiro’s Department of State,” she continued.

A spokesperson for the Department of State said some reports filed by mail are still arriving, and that the data entry and posting process for paper filings can take up to five days. Filers also have the option to submit their reports online.

On paper, state reporting requirements for independent expenditures aren’t too different from the normal schedule used by candidates and the committees that give to them directly.

Pennsylvania law requires two big disclosures in the lead-up to an election. For this cycle, groups had to report independent expenditures made up to Sept. 15, and from then until Oct. 20. (Actual filing dates were Sept. 23 and Oct. 24.) After Oct. 20, committees must report daily.

In practice, those rules are mostly self-enforced.

“You could drive a Mack Truck through the loopholes in Pennsylvania’s campaign finance rules,” election law attorney Larry Otter told Spotlight PA.

The Department of State is allowed to assess a penalty when reports are late, an agency spokesperson said, but only $10 for every tardy day, plus an additional $10 fee for “each of the first six days that a report is overdue.” For committees spending millions of dollars, that’s as good as no penalty at all.

Committees, the spokesperson said, are “responsible for determining if they meet the requirements for reporting independent expenditures.” The department investigates failures to appropriately report these expenditures if it receives a complaint.

Pennsylvanians for Judicial Fairness (PJF), a super PAC, has reported the highest amount of independent expenditures to support the Democratic justices.

Unlike Citizens for Term Limits and Commonwealth Partners, PJF must register with the Department of State and file traditional campaign finance reports in addition to reporting independent expenditures.

From the beginning of 2025 through Oct. 20, PJF spent $3.4 million on digital, mail, and TV ads, according to the reports. These documents don’t provide much additional information about the spending, including which races were targeted.

Through its separate, independent expenditure filings, PJF reported spending just over $356,270 specifically on the Supreme Court retention races. That number is likely to rise as Nov. 4 approaches.

PJF must disclose its donors to the Department of State, and reports show it raised almost $5 million this year from major political groups like the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association and the national Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

But even with those disclosures, the source of funding for PJF’s two biggest current donors is difficult to trace.

Voices for Equal Justice, an independent expenditure PAC created earlier this year, has given $1.1 million to PJF in 2025. As of Tuesday afternoon, it hadn’t filed any campaign finance reports, leaving the source of its funds a mystery.

It lists two state injury attorneys as officers on its campaign finance registration. Neither its treasurer nor a Harrisburg-based compliance firm listed as a contact returned a request for comment.

PJF also took $1 million from the nonprofit PA Alliance Action, which is incorporated as a 501(c)4 dark money group.

PA Alliance Action doesn’t have to disclose its donors, but other groups’ campaign finance records can help fill in some of the blanks.

The Justice Project PA is a recently created PAC with just one donor: Oklahoma billionaire Lynn Schusterman, who has backed Pennsylvania judicial candidates before. It reported giving PA Alliance Action $250,000.

PJF is also helping fund other groups. It’s given $810,000 to People Power Pennsylvania, a super PAC helmed by J.J. Abbott, a former spokesperson to Gov. Tom Wolf.

People Power Pennsylvania’s independent expenditure information was not on the Department of State site on Tuesday, though Abbott told Spotlight PA it was filed last week and shared a copy with the outlet. It shows $500,000 in pro-retention spending.

In a separate campaign finance report, People Power Pennsylvania reported having only one other donor: PA Alliance Action.

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