judgesonmerit.org

After months of attack ads, and millions of dollars in third party spending, the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court is over. Wisconsin has a new justice. The rest of us have a clear example of why we need to protect selection of appellate judges from elective politics.

Although Wisconsin’s judicial elections are technically non-partisan, support for the candidates lined up neatly along political lines. Incumbent Justice Louis Butler received support from Democrats and labor groups, while challenger Burnett County Circuit Judge Michael Gableman’s backing came from Republicans and conservative organizations.

In a race that the Associated press called “one of the state’s nastiest,” outside interest groups on both sides of the political fence spent millions of dollars on advertising. While nobody knows exactly how much money these groups poured into their ads, CNN reports that, as of Monday, more than $3 million had been spent “just on TV ads in the state’s top three media markets: Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay.”

It isn’t just the dollar amount that’s scary. WisPolitics.com’s election blog reports that these groups outspent the candidates themselves 11-to-1 on TV ads. Even the candidates themselves expressed concern that their messages were being overwhelmed by the third-party ad blitz.

Finally, the content and tone of the advertising helped push the race into the media spotlight. Misleading attack ads from both sides prompted the editorial board of the Wisconsin State Journal to forgo endorsing either candidate. Instead, they chose to endorse “a better method of choosing state Supreme Court justices — a method called Merit Selection.”

We hope that the voters and legislators of Pennsylvania will see the wisdom in the State Journal’s declaration that “justice should be blind, but voters should not be blinded by misinformation.” It’s time to remove partisan bickering and big-money politics from selection of appellate judges. It’s time to replace partisan election of Pennsylvania’s appellate judges with Merit Selection.

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