This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire
By Christopher Brooks
Real Clear Wire
Complaints about how Pennsylvania selects its appellate judges are nothing new. The January 1964 Citizens Conference reasoned that “the objective of any method of [judicial] selection should be to obtain judges free of political bias and collateral influences.” The Conference report concluded that “Pennsylvania has been fortunate in securing many excellent judges,” though despite, not because of, its “partisan political election” system.
It’s not because of the millions spent on appellate judicial races, either. The 2023 Supreme Court campaign cost approximately $22 million. To put that into perspective, the governor approved $19.4 million for all Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice and staff salaries, making the campaign for this one seat more costly than paying all the Commonwealth’s highest jurists and their dozens of staff for a year. If appellate judicial elections are both partisan and as costly as this, we may prudently ask how we can safeguard the appearance of fairness and equitability.
Pennsylvania legislators and citizens…
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