David Dormont, a Lower Merion Democratic Committee Person (9-1, Bala Cynwyd) was rated Recommended as a candidate for Common Pleas Judge by the Judiciary Committee of the Montgomery County Bar Association.
Dormont, a member of the Democratic Committee of Lower Merion (DCLMN) since 2014, was among three candidates that the Bar Associated listed on Wednesday (February 1) as Recommended. The other two Recommended candidates are John S. Hart and Mary C. Pugh.
Dormont also presented himself as a candidate for Common Pleas Judge in 2019 and 2021, but this year is the first time the Judicial Committee has given him a Recommended rating.
The Bar Association also rated two candidates as Highly Recommended – Daniel G. Ronca and Joseph P. Welsh.
In 2021 Ronca was the only candidate rated Highly Recommended by the Bar Association, but the Montgomery County Democratic Committee (MCDC) passed over him in favor of A. Nicole Tate-Phillips. She was rated Recommended.
Similarly, in 2019 when there were three open positions on the court, Ronca was given a Highly Recommended Rating, but MCDC did not endorse him. Instead, they chose Virgil Walker, who was also Highly Recommended. MCDC made two other endorsements in 2019 – Melissa Schwartz Sterling and Henry S. Hilles, both of whom were rated as Recommended.
In 2017, there were two open positions on the Court. MCDC endorsed Jeffrey Saltz that year. The Bar Association rated him as Highly Recommended. The Committee’s other endorsement in 2017 went to Wendy Rothstein, in whom the Committee saw something which they thought put her in a better light than Jeffrey Lindy, even though the Bar Association had rated Lindy as Highly Recommended. Rothstein was rated as Recommended.
Lindy also failed to win the Committee’s endorsement in 2015, even though he was Highly Recommended that year as well. Natasha Taylor-Smith was one of the candidates the Committee endorsed in 2015. The Bar Association did not recommend her.
After Taylor-Smith won the endorsement, the Inquirer wrote, “The endorsement of Natasha Taylor-Smith was especially perplexing to some, since there is one ‘highly recommended’ and three ‘recommended’ candidates party leaders could have backed.”
In the general election of 2015 Taylor-Smith was defeated by Republican Risa Vetri Ferman. Ferman is the last Montco Republican to win a county-wide election.