judgesonmerit.org

WDUQ, Pittsburgh’s flagship NPR station, aired this piece earlier this week about the growing support for the Merit Selection of judges in Pennsylvania. The station cited PMC’s support of the current legislation before the state House of Representatives and quoted PMC Chairman Robert C. Heim decrying the problem with mixing money and judicial selection. Regarding the $3 million-plus raised by the 2 Supreme Court candidates in this past election (and the $4.5 million spent, including over $1 million spent by the Republican Party on television ads for victorious candidate Judge Joan Orie Melvin), Heim said:

“Most of it came from lawyers. Lawyers who are going to have their matters entertained and judged by the people to whom they were contributing money.”

The only truly effective way of taking money out of the equation is to stop treating judges like politicians, and implement a judicial selection process, like Merit Selection, in which there is no campaigning.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS