Judge calls challenge to gaming nominee ‘blatantly political’

Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004 | 9:17 a.m.

PHILADELPHIA -- A lawsuit challenging the appointment of former state Rep. Jeffrey W. Coy to the state's new gambling commission is "blatantly political," the president judge of Commonwealth Court said Monday.

Judge James Gardner Colins made the comment as he and two other Commonwealth Court judges began hearing arguments in a case questioning whether Coy violated a section of the state constitution when he quit his legislative post on Sept. 2 and accepted an appointment to the commission the next day.

Attorney General Jerry Pappert, a Republican, said in a legal complaint that he believes legislators are prohibited from taking any other state jobs during the terms they were elected to serve. Coy's term wouldn't have expired until Nov. 30.

Lawyers for Coy, a Democrat, said that once he quit the Legislature, the constitutional provision no longer governed his actions and he was free to accept any state post he wished.

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