When PEG has made contributions it's been acknowledged by the judicial candidate in a thank-you. . . I think we're used to seeing the judiciary as outside the real political circle. Well, nothing has really changed aside from an evaluation of the funding that helps people in Pennsylvania get elected to judicial office. What we determined was basically two thirds of the money comes from trial lawyers and one third comes from the defense bar. When you talk about trial lawyers and you talk about a business organization, it's very rare that they're on the same side of the fence on an issue.
Trial lawyers make their money primarily by suing businesses.
When that is acknowledged the business community realizes they have to be a larger player in the judicial elections, so that they're represented well before the bar. So, if you draw the conclusion by simple connection that if the legislature and the executive branch is accused of having their campaigns being paid for by access for political action committees then the simple analogy is it has to carry over to the judiciary. . . It's pretty much the same game except, in Pennsylvania, by the judicial canon of ethics, candidates are not allowed to talk about issues that may appear before the court, where a legislative campaign or someone running for governor is going to tell us where he stands on tort reform or labor law or taxation or something like that. All judges can talk about are rules of procedure within the courts. It's a major education process.