This article is part of a year-long reporting project focusing on redistribution and gerrymandering in Pennsylvania. This is made possible by the support of Kollig PA members including the Tribune-Review / TribLIVE, and Voice Beat, a project that focuses on electoral integrity and access to the vote.
HARRISBURG – A proposal led by the Pennsylvania Legislature through GOP could soon make the state an extreme outsider in the country by allowing lawmakers to exercise more control over the Supreme Court and other appellate courts.
The measure, which could be before the electorate as soon as May, requires that the nationwide elections for appellate court judges be abolished and that it be replaced by races in partisan districts determined by legislators and redesigned every ten years.
A 50-state review by Spotlight PA and Votebeat, as well as interviews with forensic and academic experts, found that only two other states – Illinois and Louisiana – use such a system, which has heightened biased campaign fighting and special interests. and gave dark money groups. more a foothold to influence the outcome of races.
Experts said the change in Pennsylvania could jeopardize public confidence in judges because they would not respond in a nationwide constituency, but on smaller, localized districts that are more politically homogeneous. This in turn can affect how they govern, which undermines the independence of the judiciary and makes it look more political.
‘The underlying assumption [of this proposal] is that judicial decisions, rulings and the conduct of the judiciary must reflect a kind of biased or ideological majority, ”said Kent Redfield, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield. “It’s antithetical to how judges should decide.”
The proposal – advocated by Representative Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon County, a far-right member of the state legislature, looks a lot like the system in Illinois. With its partisan districts, the state has seen millions of dollars pumped into dark money in controversial – even fraudulent – elections, as special interests fight for supreme court control.
“All of these circumstances create circumstances under which one can institute prejudice or create a situation where one seems prejudiced,” Redfield said. “It is not good for the health of democratic institutions.”
Diamond and other Republicans argue that appellate judges are elected by districts, rather than in direct biased contests – as is currently the case – will ensure that the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court and the Commonwealth Court reflect the diverse geography of the state and thus its diverse legal philosophies.
Currently, the majority of the 31 judges of the Court of Appeal come from the state’s two largest and most democratic urban centers, Allegheny County and Philadelphia.
“We are drafting legislation to resolve Pennsylvania’s problems, and I do not know if any other states are suffering from this particular problem,” Diamond said in an email.
Critics – including a wide range of legal organizations and groups of good governments – call the measure a ploy for Republicans to gain more control over the Supreme Court, where Democrats in the majority recently ruled against the GOP in election and pandemic-related matters. gedinge. .
Under Diamond’s proposal, which he has tabled in every legislative session since 2015, lawmakers would draft direct districts every ten years, as they do for congressional districts. The judicial maps must meet the same redistribution criteria set forth in the Pennsylvania Constitution, which requires legislators to draw districts that are approximately equal in population, compact and contiguous, and avoid splitting places “unless absolutely necessary.”
Despite the requirements, lawmakers in Pennsylvania – which would be the sign of the three appellate court cards – have produced one of the most worrying congressional cards in the country that the Supreme Court has issued in 2018.
Since the judicial districts would be established by law, Diamond would require the approval of the governor, according to Diamond.
“I also provide input from the courts in the negotiations to draft the plan, which will bring together all three branches of government at a time when the Commonwealth needs such cooperation,” he said.
There has been much debate across the country for decades about the way judges are elected, while states follow different approaches to appointing judges by selecting merit or choosing by biased or non-biased races.
Twenty-eight states elect their judges from the Supreme Court through a combination of a commission that recommends candidates on merit to the governor or legislature for appointment, at least for an initial term on the bench, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Six states, including Pennsylvania, hold biased elections and 15 hold non-biased elections, with one state – New Mexico – requiring judges to run in biased elections after being appointed by the governor.
Four states – Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana and Illinois – elect Supreme Court justices by district. The two states that most closely resemble Diamond’s proposal, Illinois and Louisiana, hold biased district elections, but the lines remain untouched for decades.
In Illinois, three of the seven Supreme Court justices are elected from Cook County – home to Chicago’s strong Democratic seat – and the rest are elected from districts that are supposed to be equal in population. But these districts have not been redesigned since 1963, leading to unequal populations as residents moved.
After ten years on the bench, Illinois Supreme Court judges are subject to undisputed retention elections in their districts for additional terms of ten years, as Diamond suggests for Pennsylvania.
In 2004, two judicial candidates spent at least $ 8.9 million on their campaigns in the southern swing district of Illinois. In the court documents, it was later revealed that the campaign of the candidate, Lloyd Karmeier, was partly secretly funded by State Farm in an attempt to get a verdict against the company of a billion dollars.
In 2020, Republicans spent millions of dollars to prevent the Illinois Supreme Court, Thomas Kilbride, a Democrat and the vote on the court, from being held for another ten years. According to media reports, Kilbride was the first judge in the state to lose a retention offer since the practice was accepted in 1964.
In Louisiana, Supreme Court justices are elected to different ten-year terms from seven districts that have not been redesigned since 2000. All candidates participate in the same by-election, and if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the two best voters will advance to the general election.
Lawyer in New England, professor of law in Jordan, said that partisan elections in small geographical districts need more of a ‘disaster’ of the campaign than in a nationwide race, because special interests can target their audience more closely and there less media markets are to be considered.
‘It opens the door to special interests and dark money to say,’ Look, we can get a lot of money by pouring money into this small region of the state, getting our candidate elected, and then the candidate will hopefully have our interests promoted, ” he said.
This is not to say that excessive spending does not occur in partisan racing. The Brennen Center spent $ 15.9 million on the 2015 Illinois Supreme Court in Pennsylvania, where three-seat candidates spent $ 15.9 million.
Chris Bonneau, a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh, said candidates win with larger margins in judicial districts, and there are fewer disputed races because the districts are more politically homogeneous.
Redfield said district elections are likely to yield few candidates who reflect the biased or ideological ‘means’, and more who win by running extreme left or right from their base, especially if the districts are not competitive.
He said the inclusion of ideological benefits, such as redistribution, in the judicial election causes people to view judges as partisan actors considered by constituencies, rather than as impartial judges who are impervious to outside influences.
“Redistribution becomes a way of making sure that the districts do not unfairly represent the interests of people, and implicitly accept the premise that judges represent people, not the law and the Constitution,” he said.
The Pennsylvania Constitution requires amendments to be passed twice in successive sessions in the legislature before being put to the ballot. After being approved by the General Assembly last year, Diamond’s measure was approved by a House committee earlier this month, with two Republicans joining the Democrats to vote against it.
If both chambers pass the measure by 17 February, the amendment will appear on the ballot paper for the pre-election on 18 May. The next step is a vote on the House floor, though Diamond said Tuesday he does not know when the leadership intends to bring the measure to a vote. A spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Center County, did not respond to a request for comment.
Jane Cutler Greenspan, a retired judge of the Philadelphia Democratic Supreme Court appointed by Governor Ed Rendell, said she thinks of rural provinces that were not like her home base when she makes decisions that affect the entire state.
Greenspan, who opposes Diamond’s constitutional amendment, said it would not necessarily be the case if she were elected by a district.
“If I just looked at the voters in Philadelphia, I would vote,” she said. “You will have judges if you do not consider other districts.”
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