judgesonmerit.org

John Micek of the Allentown Morning Call and author of the Capitol Ideas blog offers a post-election look at the debate over whether we should continue to elect judges in Pennsylvania. He notes that there is a growing sense that the current election system is not working.

Micek notes that the lack of information available to voters in judicial elections — due to constraints on judicial candidate speech as well as limited coverage of judicial races in the media — creates a situation where results are driven by factors unrelated to qualifications to serve on the bench and voter turn-out is low:

Critics say that combination of factors has made the races the exclusive province of three constituencies: political party insiders, lawyers, and the big business interests who often find themselves in the courtroom.

So instead of the voters picking judicial candidates based on their temperament, experience and qualifications, external factors such as geography, gender and party endorsements can often carry the day.

Tim Potts, leader of Democracy Rising Pa, argues that we need judicial selection reform:

“There’s no question we need to change. The only question is whether it’s going to be to something that’s equally as awful or to the highest quality we can get. . . . We need to have a real discussion and that hasn’t happened for years.”

Merit Selection offers a good solution to the problems Micek identifies.  It focuses on qualifications, reduces or eliminates the role of factors like ballot position, name recognition, political party support and campaigning skill, and gets judges out of the fundraising business.

It’s time for Pennsylvania to tackle the serious issue of how we select appellate court judges.  This requires a great deal of attention and commitment on the part of our leaders and citizens. We hope Pennsylvanians are ready to begin the work needed to address this issue.

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