Jan 5, 2020 3 min read

Pennsylvania is one of only a handful of states that chooses its state judges at the ballot box.

And, let’s face it, even voters who pay close attention to elections often have no idea whom they are putting in these powerful positions.

Candidates are constrained on what they can say about issues that could come before them, lest it be seen that they are pre-judging cases, and they are almost entirely unknown to voters outside the legal community. Spending on the races has increased dramatically, with much of the campaign cash coming from lawyers who have a vested interest in the outcome. If you want to cast a thoughtful vote, most of the time you have to see if candidates are recommended by bar associations or newspaper editorial boards, roll the dice and hope for the best.

Now, a proposal that was approved in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives before Christmas could make a not-so-good system even worse.

Just before heading out of town for holiday merriment, lawmakers gave a thumbs-up to a proposed constitutional amendment that would have judges on the Supreme, Superior and Commonwealth courts be chosen in regional elections, rather than statewide contests. Russ Diamond, a Republican representative from Lebanon County, contends that it would bring more regional diversity to courts that he says are dominated by jurists from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The proposal would have to be approved again in the House, and two times in the Senate before voters could weigh in on it. If the commonwealth’s voters approve it, Pennsylvania would join only Louisiana and Illinois in choosing state judges this way.

It’s a bad idea.

First, Diamond’s argument that state courts are monopolized by Pittsburgh and Philadelphia doesn’t quite hold up under scrutiny. Of the seven justices on the Supreme Court, for instance, only two were born in the Pittsburgh or Philadelphia regions. And even if most of the justices on the statewide courts actually did come from Pennsylvania’s two biggest cities, it would actually make some sense – the two largest metropolitan areas in the state have the largest concentrations of high-profile lawyers, after all.

The proposal was approved along partisan lines in the House, and it’s clear that Diamond and his fellow Republicans are looking to dilute the power of presumably more liberal voters in the cities and increase the muscle of rural, conservative voters.

But the attempt to tinker with the way voters choose judges highlights the necessity of doing away with partisan judicial elections altogether and having judges be selected on the basis of merit, whether through a nominating commission or a gubernatorial appointment. That’s a better way to ensure that the bench will not be overly politicized.

As the Lancaster-based website LNP put it, “Elections turn judges into politicians, and politicians need to raise money and gain support from special interests. That’s the way the game is played. The problem is judges are not politicians, or at least they shouldn’t be.”