ELECTION 2017: Upper Dublin’s Jules Mermelstein to run for … – Montgomery Newspapers

UPPER DUBLIN >> Jules Mermelstein has been a criminal lawyer, social studies teacher, township commissioner and UD Medal winner.

In November, hell be vying to add Judge of the Pennsylvania Superior Court to his resume.

A lifelong township resident, Mermelstein, 62, says he was happily retired until January of this year, when the state Senate started trying to mess with our liberties, by trying to take away funding from so-called sanctuary cities, which he calls constitutional cities.

Its unconstitutional to force local government to hold someone for immigration, he said. What is legal is before police release an immigrant in the country illegally held on a criminal charge that they let immigration authorities know the person is going to be released, he said.

He further cited a bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy now legal until 24 weeks in Pennsylvania though the courts have said there has to be fetal viability and struck down restrictions of 20 weeks, Mermelstein said. The state Senate passed it; they didnt care.

The Trump administration put me over the edge, he said. The immigration order finally did it.

A supporter of Bernie Sanders, the longtime Democrat became disillusioned when the party started to drift to the right in the 1990s, he said. He joined the Green Party last year after it was clear Sanders was not going to get the nomination and recently began an effort to run in November for one of the four open spots on the state Superior Court.

I think the judiciary needs to stand up to the state taking over our rights, Mermelstein said.

Green Party candidates are not listed on primary ballots, they are endorsed by the party and then need to get 2,500 signatures to be on the November ballot, he said. Although his name wont be on the ballot, his supporters will be outside polling places primary day asking voters to sign a petition to get him on the November ballot, he said.

A Dresher resident and graduate of Upper Dublin High School, Mermelstein earned a bachelors degree in political science from Temple University and a law degree from American University Washington College of Law. A licensed attorney since 1980, he practiced criminal law, later earning a masters in education and teacher certification and started teaching in 2005. After two years at Germantown High School in Philadelphia, he was hired in 2007 by the Upper Dublin School District and taught U.S. history, government and economics until 2013, when he went on leave while doctors attempted to diagnose and treat a chronic illness.

Mermelstein served as an Upper Dublin commissioner from 1992-2011 and received the Upper Dublin Medal for Outstanding Citizen in 2011 in recognition of his service.

They [doctors] dont know what I have, they are treating the symptoms, he said, adding he has been stable for more than a year. The only job I could have would be one where I can manage my own schedule or be my own boss, and the judiciary has that flexibility, he said.

The Superior Court is the appellate court I most practiced in front of when I practiced law, Mermelstein said. And as a practical political reason, there are four seats available.

The judiciary has to stop what legislative and executive branches are doing in order to protect our natural rights, he said. People are born with rights, they are not given by government. The government is supposed to protect rights from the people who will take them from you. The current crop is trying to take rights away.

Mermelstein said he would like to bring more of a sense of real justice question the ability of the government to do what it is doing.

In a case of limited government, my question is, does government have the authority to label something as a crime that has no victim, he said, referring to what he termed victimless crimes, such as the possession or use of drugs.

Incarceration as a public policy should be restricted to someone who does violence to someone.

Mermelstein, the married father of two and grandfather of two, said he has joined several local progressive groups and is on the Inclusion Committee and Gun Violence Protection Task Force at Or Hadash in Fort Washington.

It will be uphill, he said, but I see a path where I could win.

The original intent [of the Constitution] was to protect our natural rights. The courts need to get involved, he said.

This candidacy is my way of resistance to forces going on now.

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ELECTION 2017: Upper Dublin's Jules Mermelstein to run for ... - Montgomery Newspapers