judgesonmerit.org

Boulder County’s Daily Camera columnist Doug Thorburn recently wrote a column praising local judge James C. Klein. The piece reserves plenty of kind words for the system that put Judge Klein on the bench.

Thorburn summarizes the problems with judicial elections, including campaign contributions that create the appearance of bias and bitter, negative campaigns that sour the reputations of otherwise competent jurists. He then describes how Colorado’s Merit Selection system works to correct these problems, and how it provides Colorado with qualified, impartial judges.

Colorado, Thorburn concludes, “should be grateful for a vetting of judges based upon merit from the outset.” We agree with this assessment, and we hope that we’ll soon be able to say the same thing about Pennsylvania’s appellate judges.