judgesonmerit.org

Senator Jeffrey E. Piccola (R. Dauphin and York) has been advocating for Pennsylvania to hold a constitutional convention — the first such convention in forty years. In a commentary piece on the Commonwealth Foundation’s website, Senator Piccola explains why he believes a constitutional convention would be useful:

Historically, a constitutional convention has not been the appropriate forum to tackle controversial social issues. There are, however, important policies and processes spelled out in the constitution that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches follow which a convention could change. Those reforms could range from changing the size of the General Assembly to term limits, or from instituting merit selection of our judges to setting compensation requirements for public officials.

Although PMC and PMCAction have not taken a position on whether Pennsylvania should have a new constitutional convention, we’re glad to see Merit Selection coming up on lists of necessary reforms for Pennsylvania.