Inquirer Editorial: Cash taints judicial races

When two-dozen Philadelphia judges showed up for a Democratic Party breakfast, they each were handed a bill that, in effect, could have covered the daily eggs special for themselves - and for hundreds of others.

The judges' unofficial tab for the recent event was $10,000 apiece, even though Democratic officials described it as a request for a voluntary donation toward party election expenses. According to reporters, the judges were told in no uncertain terms that their failure to pony up would mean ward heelers would work against them on Election Day.

Such hardball politics may be a new low in the flawed process of how judges are chosen in Pennsylvania. While the request for donations was perfectly legal, party officials have injected politics into judicial retention elections that are supposed to be nonpartisan.

It's bad enough that judicial candidates have to spend vast sums - sometimes more than $100,000 - to get elected to the Common Pleas and Municipal Courts. These elections force candidates to raise funds from the very lawyers and special interests likely to bring cases before them on the bench, creating, at the least, an impression among the public that justice is for sale.

The yes-or-no retention elections that judges face for additional terms, though, are supposed to be referendums focused solely on judges' performance in robes - not contingent on their fund-raising prowess.

By approaching sitting judges for campaign contributions, party officials are engaging in what the state's longtime court-reform group, Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, calls "a prime example of how money and politics pollute the process of electing judges."

City Democratic Party boss and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, who left the breakfast before the judges were asked to, ahem, contribute, has tried to distance himself from the party's heavy-handed request. Brady said he later assured the judges that no one on the bench would be "unendorsed" for not giving, and that the party had only asked judges to make "a good-faith effort" to donate.

The best way to bolster confidence in the impartiality of the courts, however, would be for the judges themselves to refuse to bow to the party's request to "voluntarily" contribute, and to proclaim their stand publicly.

Failing that, the whole breakfast episode should at least help motivate some state lawmakers - their efforts supported by Gov. Corbett - who are pushing for the merit-based appointment of appellate-court judges as a first step in breaking the link between judges and campaign cash.