Get ready for a mudbath in judicial race advertising
Anyone paying attention in Pennsylvania knows the state Supreme Court has been in turmoil, beset with corruption, in-fighting and as much porn as you might find in a fraternity house during rush week.
Anyone paying attention in Pennsylvania knows the state Supreme Court has been in turmoil, beset with corruption, in-fighting and as much porn as you might find in a fraternity house during rush week.
Turn on a television this week and things are getting worse for the court.
A new wave of negative television commercials is airing across the state, attacking most of the candidates seeking the court's three vacant seats.
We've known for months that this was coming from "independent expenditure" groups with no official ties to the candidates.
There's plenty at stake.
The seven-member court has been controlled by a Republican majority for 16 years. There have not been three vacant seats up for grabs since 1704, when the governor made appointments to what was then called the Provincial Court.
The Democrats want to take over. The Republicans want to hold on.
Cue the complaining - with predictable political bogeymen employed - by the two political parties.
Rob Gleason, chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, exclaims, "We're under attack" by "liberal special interests - led by Philadelphia trial lawyers and union bosses" criticizing his party's three candidates.
He's talking about Pennsylvanians for Judicial Reform, which has booked $1.1 million in television time through Tuesday.
Marcel Groen, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, complains that the "Koch brothers" - billionaire businessmen who back conservative causes - are funding groups opposing his party's three candidates.
He's talking about the Republican State Leadership Committee, which has booked $1.2 million in television time until the Nov. 3 general election.
The email missives from Gleason and Groen don't mention that the groups trying to help their parties are using the same tactics that they are decrying.
It didn't have to be this way. And maybe someday this all will change.
Common Cause Pennsylvania, a good government group, in August asked the Republicans, Democrats and the lone independent candidate to sign a pledge that said they did not want or support independent expenditure ads in the race.
Only the independent, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Paul Panepinto, signed it.
The three Democrats and three Republicans - all currently judges used to exerting power - each shrugged off responsibility for independent expenditure groups during a recent candidate forum.
Their message: If we don't control it, there's no use talking about it.
Since then, Common Cause executive director Barry Kauffman has watched the negative ads fill the airwaves.
"It was easily predictable," he said. "We tried to head it off at the pass."
Amid this mess, interesting news spilled forth last Tuesday from the state House Judiciary Committee, which approved legislation that would establish a commission to appoint judges to the statewide Commonwealth, Superior and Supreme Courts.
It's just one step in a long process that requires the state House and Senate to approve the bill in two consecutive sessions and then have the question placed on a statewide referendum ballot for voters to consider.
Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, which advocates for so-called merit selection instead of judicial elections, sees the bipartisan vote as a good sign, according to Lynn Marks, the group's executive director.
"As long as you elect judges in a partisan election process, especially in a state like Pennsylvania where there are no campaign contribution limits, you're going to expect that there will be a lot of money pouring into these races and independent expenditures," Marks said. "So in the midst of ever-increasingly expensive partisan and negative races for the Supreme Court, legislators from both sides of the aisle took the first step in getting ads like these out of the process."
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@ByChrisBrennan