Mar 8, 2016 3 min read

Let’s be frank: When some of the most politically attuned voted for candidates to sit on the state’s Superior, Supreme and Commonwealth courts in recent elections, they frequently have not had a clue about who or what they were voting for.

Since candidates are typically circumspect on how they would rule in specific cases, voters have had to gather clues from endorsements or the candidates’ party affiliations. Sometimes, simple familiarity with a candidate’s name is enough to generate votes, and so is that name’s positioning on the ballot. Geographic loyalty also provides advantages – a candidate from the Philadelphia region almost certainly has more muscle than one from, say, Meadville or McEwensville.

It’s not exactly throwing darts, but it’s pretty close.

There is a better way for this whole process to be carried out – judges to the state’s appellate courts should be appointed, not elected. While judges on the common pleas and magisterial levels would continue to be elected, a bipartisan commission would make recommendations to the governor for appellate judges, and his choices would then be confirmed by the Legislature – a process not at all unlike how appellate judges are now selected on the federal level. Called merit selection, it’s how almost half the states in the country, along with the District of Columbia, fill their upper-level benches. Pennsylvania should join them.

In October, the House Judiciary Committee approved a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would put a merit selection process in place. It since stalled. Nevertheless, efforts by supporters of a merit selection plan received a significant boost late last month when Gov. Tom Wolf joined with the five living former governors of Pennsylvania – Dick Thornburgh, Tom Ridge, Mark Schweiker, Ed Rendell and Tom Corbett – and sent a letter to members of the House urging they suppport merit selection.

According to Schweiker, “Merit selection is a commonsense solution used in many states. In fact, we are one of a small number of states that elects all our judges in partisan elections. Merit selection is not perfect – no system is – but it is a vast improvement over our current system where judges are often selected based on fundraising ability, name recognition, ballot position or party affiliation. Merit selection would write qualifications into the (Pennsylvania) constitution and ensure that our judges meet more than the minimum standards.”

Schweiker raises another salient point – these contests have been subject to an enormous amount of spending, with nasty attack ads blanketing the airwaves. Last fall’s scramble for three of seven seats on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court resulted in $16 million being spent – certainly a boon for political consultants and broadcast outlets, but not so good for democracy in general and Pennsylvania’s citizens in particular. And the overwhelming bulk of that cash almost certainly came from advocacy groups, business interests or lawyers who had a vested interest in the outcome.

Also, consider what voting for our jurists yielded lately: Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin convicted for mixing staff and political business; Seamus McCaffrey, another justice on the state’s highest court, resigning after it was found he was swapping pornographic emails on state time; and J. Michael Eakin, on suspension and awaiting trial before the Judicial Conduct Board in a few weeks for his alleged participation in “Porngate.”

Going to a merit selection would increase the chances that our judges will be chosen on the basis of actual merit. Let’s hope the Legislature gets the ball rolling.