would suppose that Governor Leader did not fire him for being late for work." Despite the split in Democratic support, Weinberg achieved a clear victory over Guerin and their Republican opponent, John Donnelly. Judges and magistrates Although Pennsylvania's judges are elected in partisan elections, there had been a tradition of not challenging the re-election of incumbents, or "sitting judges." To that end, judicial candidates were typically endorsed by both major parties. The parties had followed the sitting judge tradition in 1951, but in 1953 the Democrats broke the informal pact and endorsed just three of the sitting judges. The result was an unusually intense contest for the thirteen seats available, which the Republicans won. By 1957, the old order was mostly re-established as fourteen of the fifteen judges were endorsed for re-election by both parties and returned to office without opposition. The fifteenth, 75-year-old Joseph L. Kun, was President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and had served on the court for thirty years. In February, lawyers from the city bar association voted by a 2-to-1 margin to not endorse his re-election, calling him unqualified to hold office. Despite the bipartisan effort against him among the city's lawyers, Kun filed for re-election in both parties' primaries. Kun won the Republican nomination handily, but lost the Democratic nomination to Earl Chudoff, a member of the federal House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district. In November, Chudoff won easily, taking 58% of the vote. Kun, already in poor health, retired from the profession of law and died in 1961. Chudoff remained on the bench until 1974. There were also thirteen seats open for magistrate, a local court, the duties of which are now performed by the Philadelphia Municipal Court. In the magistrate races, each political party could nominate eight candidates, and voters could only vote for eight, with the result being that the majority party could only take eight of the thirteen seats, leaving five for the minority party. The Democrats took the maximum number of eight magistracies, with incumbents Vincent A. Dean and William Cibotti leading the ticket. Republicans were held to just the five slots allotted them, with incumbent Benjamin W. Schwartz taking the most votes of his party's nominees. Ballot questions In the primary ballot, voters agreed to divide the 35th ward into seven wards, accounting for the increased settlement in the city's Northeast section that made