Parties to an ongoing legal battle over the process of replacing former Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Matt McGloin reiterated their positions in briefs filed with the county Court of Common Pleas — filings that precede oral arguments scheduled for next week.
Monday was the court-imposed deadline for the filing of briefs in the litigation Democratic Commissioner Bill Gaughan and the county commenced last month seeking to remove the Lackawanna County Democratic Committee from the process of replacing McGloin, who left office in late February. At issue is which process should control the appointment of McGloin’s successor: one established by the county Home Rule Charter involving the Democratic Committee or another pursuant to Pennsylvania Rule of Judicial Administration 1908 involving the county court alone.
The Home Rule Charter process played out controversially in late February, when county Democratic Party leaders used a scoring rubric to determine the three top-scoring finalists for the vacancy from a pool of 18 applicants. Party leaders then put those three finalists — former county economic development director Brenda Sacco, Olyphant Borough Council President James Baldan and Scranton School Director Robert J. Casey — before the county party’s full executive committee, which voted during the closed-door session to advance the trio for consideration by the judges of the county court.
Gaughan and the county challenged that process in a mid-March petition seeking an amendment to a March 6 court order that maintained but reset the clock on the Home Rule Charter procedure. That order, signed by former county President Judge Trish Corbett, gave the Democratic Committee five days from the date of the order to furnish the court with three potential appointees. County Democratic Party Chairman Chris Patrick ultimately resubmitted the same three names, those of Sacco, Baldan and Casey, to the judges.
By maintaining the Home Rule Charter process, the March 6 order violated Pennsylvania Rule of Judicial Administration 1908 that the state Supreme Court adopted in 2019, Gaughan and the county contend. Rule 1908 says the county court, not a political party, “shall receive applications from any interested candidates for the position” pursuant to a deadline established by the court.
Gaughan and the county specifically seek an amendment bringing the March 6 order into compliance with Rule 1908, cutting the Democratic Committee out of the replacement process and putting it exclusively in the hands of the judges.
In its brief filed March 7, the Democratic Committee contends Gaughan and the county’s petition should be promptly dismissed because the Home Rule Charter adopted by voters supersedes Rule 1908.
“This Court already has implicitly rejected and should continue to reject Petitioners’ claim that an internal judicial administrative rule was intended to undo the ability of Lackawanna County residents to determine how vacancies should be filled,” the committee’s brief reads. “Instead, this Court should proceed pursuant to the Charter as it had intended, by interviewing the three nominees and selecting one to join the other two Commissioners.”
The committee also contends Gaughan and the county lack standing in the legal matter.
“This is a vacancy which by definition Gaughan cannot be chosen to fill, given that he is already a sitting Commissioner,” the committee’s brief notes. “To be sure, he is interested in who his new colleague will be, but he has no legal rights with regards to that question; it is an interest he shares with every resident of Lackawanna County.”
Gaughan and the county responded in a brief filed Monday, claiming “the Pennsylvania Constitution unambiguously directs that court rules like Rule 1908 supersede all other laws.”
“Pursuant to this categorical constitutional imperative, and consistent with settled precedent, Rule 1908 displaces the Lackawanna County Home Rule Charter and supplants the closed and secret selection process controlled by the Lackawanna County Democratic Committee,” Gaughan and the county contend. “This court is constitutionally required to implement Rule 1908 and consider all registered Democrats interested in filling the vacant commissioner position for the remainder of Commissioner McGloin’s term.”
The brief also rejects the Democratic Committee’s claim that Gaughan and the county lack standing, noting among other arguments that it’s “settled law in Pennsylvania that municipalities and their officials have standing to challenge the constitutionality of actions affecting their government functions and interests.”
Republican Commissioner Chris Chermak, meanwhile, seeks to have the county removed as a party to the legal action, arguing Gaughan unilaterally commenced the litigation on behalf of the county without his authorization. Chermak’s brief does not take a position on which process should control replacing McGloin.
“Commissioner Chermak’s only concern is that Lackawanna County and its assets (taxpayer money) not be a party to this dispute and not be utilized to determine this dispute,” Chermak’s brief notes.
Chermak’s argument that the county is not a proper party to the litigation is “baseless,” Gaughan and the county contend.
Moreover, Sacco, the highest-scoring of the three finalists the Democratic Committee advanced under the Home Rule Charter process, recently filed a petition seeking to enter the litigation, claiming to be a victim of a “smear campaign” orchestrated by Gaughan and the county via reporting by The Times-Tribune. If permitted the intervene in the case, Sacco would have backed the Home Rule Charter process and filed a separate motion for a protective order preventing Gaughan and the county “from orchestrating false news stories about (her) in the local press,” per her legal petition prepared by attorney Paul James Walker of Clarks Summit.
But a panel of senior county Judges Carmen D. Minora, Robert A. Mazzoni and Vito P. Geroulo, who are collectively presiding over the legal matter, denied last week Sacco’s petition to intervene. Sacco’s interests in the case are adequately represented by the Democratic Committee, the judges ruled.
The panel of judges will hear oral arguments in the case Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.