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.

On Monday December 7, the Courts Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the pending Merit Selection legislation.  The hearing will be at 10:00 am in Room G50, Irvis Office, Capitol Building.

Testifying in support of implementing a Merit Selection system for the Pennsylvania appellate courts will be Robert Heim, Lynn Marks and Shira Goodman of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts and PMCAction, J. Whyatt Mondesire of the NAACP, Dave Taylor of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association and Charlotte Glauser of the League of Women Voters of PA.

The hearing is the first step in the process of moving forward with legislation to amend the constitution.  We hope this process will allow Pennsylvanians to have an important dialogue about whether we should change the way we select appellate court judges.

We know from polls and surveys and from low voter turn-out that there is great concern about the role of money in judicial elections.  We also know that Pennsylvanians have been losing confidence in our courts and judges.  We believe Merit Selection — which focuses on getting the most qualified, fair and impartial judges on the appellate courts and gets judges out of the fundraising business — will be a significant factor in restoring public confidence in our courts.