HARRISBURG — Former Gov. Tom Ridge urged Pennsylvania voters Thursday to ignore a campaign to oust dozens of incumbent state judges over the pay raises they received in 2005.

"At some point in time, yesterday's issues are yesterday's issues," Ridge said at a news conference where he was flanked by the Republican candidates for two open seats on the state Supreme Court and three on the lower Superior Court.

"Politics is about tomorrow," he said. "Government is about tomorrow."

Dozens of judges are running for additional terms in yes-or-no retention votes in the Nov. 6 election. Ridge was asked for his opinion on a campaign by the citizen group PACleanSweep for "no" votes on the retention of state, county and local judges who "accepted" the raise that the Legislature approved for top officials in all three branches of state government in July 2005.

In the 2005 election, amid rising voter anger over the Legislature's secretive handling of the pay raises, then-Supreme Court Justice Russell Nigro became the first statewide judge to be turned out of office on a retention vote. Nigro's ouster came after PACleanSweep and allied groups turned that vote into a referendum on the pay raises.

Lawmakers repealed the raises shortly after Nigro's defeat, but last year the Pennsylvania Supreme Court retroactively restored the raises for the state's roughly 1,000 judges. The vast majority of judges up for retention votes are receiving the raises.

Russ Diamond, the founder of PACleanSweep, said the pay raise issue remains viable because "it hasn't been settled to the people's satisfaction."

Ridge said he is particularly troubled that state Supreme Court Justice Tom Saylor's retention campaign has been targeted this year.