Editor’s Note, 4:34 pm: This story has been updated with input from Keith Eckel.
The judge who presided over the contentious lawsuit between two state officials and the NCAA is now at odds with a statewide legal organization, and a Penn State trustee figures into the conflict.
Commonwealth Court Judge Anne Covey announced her intent to run for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in January, according to campaign manager Keith Naughton. As part of the process, Covey was evaluated by the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Judicial Evaluation Committee, which concluded on Tuesday that Covey is “not recommended” for the position.
Covey’s problem with their conclusion? Penn State Trustee Keith Eckel is a member of the JEC, and Penn State was a party to the lawsuit between State Sen. Jake Corman and the NCAA for which she was the judge — which she says is a conflict of interest.
“This is very significant because you can’t have someone sitting on what is supposed to be an impartial committee who is also a party to a lawsuit sitting in front of the judge they’re evaluating,” Naughton says.
Covey was highly critical of the NCAA in many of her rulings in the case. The lawsuit was settled by last month before the case went to trial.
According to Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers, Eckel says he did recuse himself from the evaluation process and was not involved in shaping the bar association’s recommendations.
“I never attended an interview or a meeting to evaluate any candidates,” Eckel says in a statement.
Naughton says that Covey also received conflicting stories about whether Eckel was actually involved in evaluating her. The bar association chairman reportedly first told Covey that the full commission had met to evaluate her, but later reportedly told her that no Penn State trustee was involved in the process.
Eckel could not be reached for comment on the role he played in Covey’s evaluation.
According to a news release from the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the decision to not recommend Covey for the supreme court seat has less to do with Eckel than it does with a television campaign ad from 2011.
“In connection with her 2011 campaign for Commonwealth Court, the candidate signed a pledge to not engage in false or misleading campaign advertising,” the Feb. 10 release reads. “The commission viewed one of her campaign advertisements, which aired in early November of 2011, and concluded she violated her pledge.”
“Moreover, when questioned about the matter, in the Commission’s opinion, she was not forthright in her responses.”
Naughton says the ad was a “comparison ad” that argued Covey was better candidate for judge than her opponent, which he describes as “a legitimate part of the elections process.”
In letter to the Pennsylvania Bar Association from Covey dated Feb. 8, she writes that the questions asked about the 2011 campaign ad were based on a blog post that she had never read that had reportedly endorsed her opponent – which she believes was a biased and possibly inaccurate basis for the commission’s questions about the ad.
In a prepared statement released Tuesday, Covey says it is “the height of irresponsibility” to base a judicial rating on a television advertisement instead of her years of professional experience.
“The ad in question was factual and I stand by its accuracy,” Covery says in her statement. “The United States Supreme Court affirms the right of candidates to engage in free speech. No private association can abridge that right.”
The PBA’s evaluation does not prevent Covey from running in the election, which Naughton says Covey still plans to do.
Representatives from the PBA could not be reached for comment.
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