judgesonmerit.org

In a joint letter to the Philadelphia Daily News, PMC Board Chair Bob Heim and PMCAction Board Chair Bob Fiebach respond to a critic of Merit Selection. In an earlier post, we pointed out the critic’s fundamental misunderstanding of Merit Selection and unreasonable fear of letting the voters decide the best way to choose appellate judges. In their letter, our leaders neatly sum up the problem: “[The critic] does not understand what so many voters know: Judges are different.”

Heim and Fiebach point out that judges have different responsibilities than other public officials. Politicians are expected to make promises to constituents and campaign donors. At election time, those promises - kept or not - often decide their political fate. By contrast, judges “are sworn to uphold the law in an even-handed manner without regard to personal belief, political pressure, popular will, or the preferences of campaign donors.”

“How can we expect judges to campaign like other elected officials and then, when they take the bench, expect that the public will view them differently? No wonder this system breeds a lack of public confidence.”

Our leaders close with a reminder that Merit Selection advocates want to give the people a chance to decide the best way to select appellate court judges. Critics of Merit Selection seem very worried about letting the voters make this decision. Why is that?