Thornburgh Puts Senate Plans on Hold : Election: A judge rules that Pennsylvania’s procedure for choosing a successor to the late John Heinz is unconstitutional.

Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh on Monday put on hold his plans to resign and run for the unexpired term of the late U.S. Sen. John Heinz, after a federal judge ruled that Pennsylvania’s method for filling the vacancy is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Edward N. Cahn, ruling in Philadelphia on Monday, struck down the state law under which the state Republican and Democratic parties planned to choose the Senate candidates for a November general election.

The judge said the process, which does not include a primary, deprives voters of their right to participate “at all stages of the electoral process” and puts too much control in the hands of political party activists.

Unless the ruling is overturned, the state must either enact a new election law or wait until 1994 to elect a successor to Heinz, according to a spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office. The spokesman said the state’s lawyers had not yet decided whether to appeal.

The unusual ruling throws the Senate race up in the air and raises the prospect that Harris Wofford, appointed by Democratic Gov. Robert P. Casey to fill the vacancy until a special election, could serve the three years left in Heinz’s term. Heinz died in a plane crash April 4.

A spokesman for Thornburgh, who agonized for months before announcing his decision to run last week, said: “You can’t run for something if there is no election.”

The spokesman, Dan Eramian, noted that Thornburgh in his announcement cited legal questions about the election when he said he would remain in his post until at least the end of July. Thornburgh also said he wanted to stay on to work for passage of the Administration’s civil rights and crime bills.

Another Thornburgh aide said: “If there is an election this November, he intends to be a candidate, but there is no guarantee that there is going to be an election.” Thornburgh will run in a primary if it precedes a general election in November, but “right now, all plans by everybody are on hold,” he said.

Judge Cahn ruled in a suit brought by Jack Trinsey Jr., a Pennsylvania developer and would-be Republican candidate for the Senate who said he used an encyclopedia rather than law books to fashion his case. Trinsey’s pleadings, replete with flowery language about heroes and freedom, alleged that the state’s method for choosing a successor to Heinz deprived voters of a voice.

In a 22-page opinion, the judge agreed. He ruled that the state could choose to hold a general election without a primary, but that party committees could not select the candidates. “The political parties . . . have adopted rules that allow party committee members to vote for a nominee while denying the vote to everyone else,” Cahn wrote.

The judge said only Montana and Colorado use such a “drastic measure” to “address the exigencies of a senatorial vacancy.” Eighteen states provide for primaries if a Senate seat suddenly becomes open, and the remaining states have no specific laws to govern such cases, Cahn said.

The judge rejected the argument of Pennsylvania Atty. Gen. Ernie Preate that the party nomination process works to fill a vacancy promptly and ensures an appointed senator will serve only as long as necessary.