Reclaim Philadelphia’s Citywide Committee Judicial Recommendations for Member Endorsements in the 2025 Municipal Primary
Reclaim Philadelphia’s Citywide Committee announces its final recommendations for member endorsement for the May 20 Primary Election. Membership voting continues from Tuesday May 6, til midnight Tuesday May 13, 2025. Candidates endorsed by member vote will join the endorsements we have already made for Larry Krasner for District Attorney.
Current dues-paying members have already been emailed a link from OpaVote to participate in our member endorsement vote. The link will be sent to the email addresses connected to your ActBlue account. Members can now begin voting on these recommendations for member endorsements. Not currently a member? You can become one now and vote! Make sure to check your spam if you can’t find your link to vote. If you are a member and have not received the OpaVote reach out to our Executive Director Seth Anderson-Oberman at Seth@reclaimphiladelphia.org
Review our Judicial Candidate Questionnaires
Candidates organized by alphabetical order for each office
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas
Anthony Stefanski and Qawi Abdul-Rahman did not submit a completed questionnaire.
Judge of the Municipal Court
Qawi Abdul-Rahman did not submit a completed questionnaire.
*In our online OPAvote Endorsement for judge candidates, Mike Huff's name was misspelled as a candidate for Judge of Municipal Court. Any vote cast for Muff Huff will be tabulated as a vote for Mike Huff.
Since 2017, Reclaim Philadelphia has made endorsements for judicial candidates running for seats on Philadelphia’s Courts.
Our communities deserve judges who understand public safety isn’t something we achieve by locking up enough people in cages. Judges are critical fixtures of the prison industrial complex, and in that system they hold a tremendous amount of power over our lives and our communities. This election cycle we have the chance to elect judges who profess our shared values.
Reclaim’s Citywide Committee has voted to recommend the following candidates for Court of Common Pleas and Municipal Court in the May 20 Primary Election. We recommend these candidates for endorsement because we believe they will have the most positive impact on institutions that enable mass incarceration and housing displacement — an institution derived from forces designed to uphold chattel slavery, suppress organized labor, and uplift the needs of landlords in housing decisions. This slate of judicial candidates includes public defenders, labor lawyers, and champions of housing justice in the courts.
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas
#3 Will Braveman
#4 Mike Huff
#6 Larry Farnese
#7 Brian Kisielewski
#8 Irina Ehrlich
#11 Sarah Jones
#12 Kia Ghee
#13 Taniesha Henry
Judge of the Municipal Court
#14 Sherrie Cohen
#15 Amanda Davidson
#16 Cortez Patton
Reclaim Philadelphia’s endorsements are decided by members like you. All members can and should participate in the endorsement process! Candidates who receive the votes of at least 60% of the participating members (members who submit a ballot) are endorsed. Not a member? You can become one now to weigh in on endorsements and other future important decisions about the direction of Reclaim Philadelphia and our movement.
Membership voting continues fromTuesday May 6, to Tuesday May 13, 2025.
In advance of candidate endorsements, Reclaim’s Citywide Committee leads a process of gathering information and viewpoints from candidates, Reclaim staff and members. aligned open wards, legal organizations, labor unions, and movement organizations. Based on this research while considering both the values of candidates and our confidence in their ability to drive change once on the courts, the Citywide Committee makes recommendations to membership. Only the 14 candidates who submitted questionnaires and sat for interviews with our members can qualify for a member endorsement.
Reclaim Philadelphia’s Citywide Committee is a leadership team made of Reclaim staff, Neighborhood Chapter representatives, and 10 At-Large member representatives directly elected by Reclaim Philadelphia members to two-year terms. The current At-Large Member representatives were elected by members in the Fall of 2024. You can read more about our leadership team here.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT VOTING
Verify your voter Registration: Even if you are a regular voter, it’s always good to verify your registration. The deadline to register to vote or update your voter registration was Monday May 5 and has passed. You can only vote where you are currently registered to vote.
If voting by mail: The deadline to apply for a mail-in or absentee ballot is 5pm on Tuesday, May 13. Once you receive your mail-in ballot, we advise you to drop it off as soon as possible ONLY at the Board of Elections in City Hall, the closest 24/7 Ballot Drop Off Box, or the closest Satellite Election Office by 8pm on Election Day, not your polling place.
Make your mail-in ballot count: 1) Mark your ballot with a black or blue pen. 2) Seal it in the secrecy envelope. 3) Seal the secrecy envelope into the return envelope. Ballots without the secrecy envelope will not be counted! 4) Sign and date the return envelope.
Get all your voting resources for the upcoming election and reclaim your vote here!
Take Action with us: 1) Sign up here to join us and knock doors to get out the vote for our endorsed and recommended candidates 2) Invest in our canvass program by making a donation here!
In Solidarity,
Citywide Committee Members,
Kyra Schwartz (Chair)
Tess Kerins (Vice Chair)
Lev Hirschhorn (Treasurer)
Dom Shannon (Secretary)
Elizabeth Schlingmann (Meeting Coordinator)
Julia Tackett (Membership Coordinator)
Erica Brown (At-Large)
Tammer Ibrahim (At-Large)
Adams Rackes (At-Large)
Adrián Rivera-Reyes (At-Large)
Seth Anderson-Oberman (Executive Director)
Sergio Cea (Political Director)
Walter Bilderback (Neighborhood Leader)
Sarah Bishop-Stone (Neighborhood Leader)
Rahul Datta (Neighborhood Leader)
David Evans (Neighborhood Leader)
Sarice Greenstein (Neighborhood Leader)
Mijuel Johnson (Neighborhood Leader)
Emily Kraeck (Neighborhood Leader)
Jayson Massey (Neighborhood Leader)
Judith Max Palmer (Neighborhood Leader)
Alison Wallach (Neighborhood Leader)
