judgesonmerit.org

American Courthouse has tipped us off to a story on Texas Watchdog about a big donor to democratic judicial candidates in Texas — attorney Mikal Watts — who has an interesting view about the effect of his campaign contributions.  A letter Watts drafted to opposing counsel in a pending case argues that the parties should settle because:

[Watts] would prevail in an appeal because his law firm helped finance the campaigns of judges on the state’s 13th Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi. . . . “This court is comprised of six justices, all of whom are good Democrats,” Watts wrote in the letter. “The Chief Justice, Hon. Rogelio Valdez, was recently elected with our firm’s heavy support, and is a man who believes in the sanctity of jury verdicts.”

When called upon to explain the letter, Watts said he meant to convey that

the Texas Supreme Court wouldn’t hear the case if he won it on the appellate level. Why does that matter?  Watts explained that the lawyers he takes on typically will boast in their own right, saying, “It doesn’t matter what a jury is going to do because we’ve got nine angry Republicans on the Texas Supreme Court who will take away whatever a jury does.”

Texas Watchdog sums it up like this: “In other words, Watts seems to be saying that if he was bragging about rigging the system, it was only to give the other guys a taste of their own medicine.”

We already know that the public believes that campaign contributions affect decisions in the courtroom.  This incident demonstrates that the belief is shared by at least some of those who contribute to judicial campaigns.  How widespread is that belief? It’s hard to know, but what else explains the continuing escalation in campaign war chests?

We think the right way to solve this problem is to get money out of the process of choosing judges.

We frequently acknowledge that reasonable people can disagree about the best way to select appellate court judges.  We believe it’s time to have a full, open dialogue in Pennsylvania about whether we should change how we pick our appellate judges.  We want that to include a public referendum on the question.  And that’s why we’re working within the constitutional amendment process to pursue the reform we believe is needed.

We understand that people have strong opinions about these issues.  And we welcome impassioned debate.  But we’re tired of opponents of Merit Selection attacking us and the Merit Selection process on false premises.  It happened again yesterday.  American Courthouse accused us of wanting to change to Merit Selection so we can get a certain kind of judge on the bench.  That’s simply not true.

We have never criticized or praised any judge for his or her judicial philosophy or decisions.  We have never advocated the election or defeat of any judicial candidate.  We have always focused on the problems with the electoral system — the skyrocketing campaign contributions from lawyers, law firms and organizations that litigate in the state courts, the lack of required qualifications to serve on the appellate courts, the lack of diversity on our appellate courts, the influence of random factors like ballot position affecting election outcomes, and voters’ inability to access relevant information about the candidates.  These are the reasons we want to change the way we pick our appellate court judges.

So, disagree with us if you must, but get our position right when you do.

It’s interesting how Merit Selection opponents trot out the same tired arguments every time there seems to be some progress in the effort to let the people weigh in on the question of how we should choose appellate judges. Dan Pero, over at American Courthouse, echoes these same refrains in his most recent post about Pennsylvania.

Let’s set the record straight. Merit Selection supporters trust the voters to make important decisions. That’s why we want the legislature to give them the opportunity to decide whether or not to change the way we pick appellate court judges.

It’s been 40 years since this issue went before the people. In that time, elections have become increasingly expensive and partisan. Public confidence in the judiciary has declined drastically. We know this is in large part related to the money, which leads us back to the question; why do we choose judges this way?

So, we’re ready to let the people tell us what they think. Merit Selection opponents, however, never want it to get that far. In their minds, the people had a chance 40 years ago and now they’re stuck with it. Who’s afraid to give the people a voice?

We want to use the democratic process to decide a critical question about our system of government. Why are Merit Selection opponents so afraid of that? Is it that they know Merit Selection is a better way to select judges and that the people, if given a chance, would want to try it? That’s the only logical explanation for their unwillingness to let the democratic process take its course.