John Baer | Electing judges: Yet another field ripe for reform in Pa.
FOUR WEEKS from today, Nov. 6, a bunch of judges you never heard of stand for silly yes/no elections nobody pays attention to.
FOUR WEEKS from today, Nov. 6, a bunch of judges you never heard of stand for silly yes/no elections nobody pays attention to.
Others are on the ballot for a bunch of open seats.
Statewide turnout, with no action anywhere except that Montgomery County commissioners' race, will be very light.
So on the strength of limited and virtually blind voting, this is how we array our courts with men and women to whom we entrust our justice.
Shake your head with me.
This is just one problem in Pennsylvania, a state long in need of basic reforms to bring it closer to its citizens and sanity.
Name your issue - campaign finance, term limits, size and cost of government, access to public records, political corruption - and our state stands on the wrong side nationally.
Fun for journalists; not so much for citizens.
Now you're asked to consider retaining 67 judges, including seven statewide, 16 in Philadelphia; and to vote for dozens of candidates for other benches throughout the state.
Good luck.
That we elect statewide judges at all is insane.
Their campaigns are funded by lawyers, law firms and other interests whose cases they hear, creating the impression that justice is for sale.
By choice or canon, candidates say little for fear of prejudging cases, leaving voters clueless as to what they might believe. We pick on the basis of a good-sounding name, gender, ballot position or whim. Crazy.
Only five other states hold partisan elections for all judges. Only five.
(Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Texas, West Virginia; you probably could have guessed three of them.)
Groups such as Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts and the Pennsylvania Bar Association try to help with Web sites such as PaVoteSmart.com.
But the Legislature, clearly not interested in real reforms of its sorry, bloated, costly self, should fix this mess, amend the Constitution and allow merit selection of statewide judges.
As to retention elections, the grassroots group PA Clean Sweep, which did well drawing attention to legislative abuses in the wake of the '05 pay grab, recommends ousting all the judges (except Superior Court Judge Joan Orie Melvin, who returned her raise).
The group says "no, no, 66 times no" on grounds that the judges took the raise even after it was repealed by the Legislature.
This, too, is nuts.
From a practical standpoint, success means Gov. Ed appoints 66 new judges (imagine the sniping, mayhem and delays that ensue). From a law-of-averages standpoint, there must be deserving judges.
Prominent in the issue is Supreme Court Justice Thomas Saylor, the highest-ranking judge up for a 10-year renewal.
He's targeted by Sweep and others for being part of a court too cozy with the Legislature and for keeping his raise after voting against it.
I understand the first notion. The high court is seen colluding with lawmakers to trample the Constitution on pay grabs, slots and more.
And Saylor has shown some squirreliness: in '05, he paid a $750 civil penalty after twice (and bizarrely) trying to get on an airplane with a small pocketknife; in '04, he charged taxpayers for 34 car washes. But he voted against the raise (who cares why?). His keeping it is in keeping with the law and his car washes pale in light of colleagues' charges of lavish meals, tips and services.
The pocketknife? I don't know. Supposedly some sentimental value. Saylor, 60, is intellectual if not political. He holds degrees from the University of Virginia and Columbia. If he has trouble holding social conversation, so what? Do we want smart judges or political judges?
Lots of this makes my head hurt. But I understand the efforts to change a system that helped foster the pay grab a lot more than I understand ousting the only judge who voted against it. *
Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.
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