This article is part of a year-long reporting project focused on redistribution and remanding in Pennsylvania. It is made possible by the support of Spotlight PA members, including Tribune-Review / TribLIVE, and Votebeat, a project focused on election integrity and voting rights.
HARRISBURG – A proposal running through Pennsylvania’s GOP-led legislature could soon make the state an extreme outlier in the country by allowing lawmakers to exercise more control over the Supreme Court and other courts of appeal.
The measure, which could be open to voters as early as May, calls for the abolition of elections for the judges of the court of appeal and to replace them with races in partisan districts determined by lawmakers and renewed every 10 years signed.
A review of 50 states by Spotlight PA and Votebeat, as well as interviews with judicial and academic experts, found that only two other states – Illinois and Louisiana – use such a system, which has increased the battle between partisan campaigns and special interests and shady money groups has given. more of a fulcrum to influence the outcome of races.
Experts said the change in Pennsylvania could jeopardize public confidence in judges because they would respond not to a statewide constituency, but rather smaller, localized districts that are more politically homogeneous. That, in turn, could affect how they govern, eroding the independence of the judiciary and making it more political.
The underlying assumption [of this proposal] is that court rulings, decisions and the behavior of the judiciary must reflect some kind of partisan or ideological majority, ”said Kent Redfield, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois Springfield. “It contradicts how judges should rule.”
The proposal – defended by Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon County, a far-right member of the state legislature – most closely resembles the Illinois system. With its partisan districts, the state has seen millions of dollars in dark money pumped into contentious – even fraudulent – elections as special interests vie for control of the highest court.
“All of these factors create conditions where you can introduce bias or create a situation where you have the appearance of bias,” Redfield said. “That is not good for the health of democratic institutions.”
Diamond and other Republicans argue that choosing judges on appeal by districts rather than in statewide partisan competitions – as is currently the case – will ensure that the Supreme Court, Supreme Court and Commonwealth Court state, and thus the various legal philosophies.
Currently, the majority of the appellate court’s 31 judges come from the state’s two largest and most democratic urban centers, Allegheny County and Philadelphia.
“We are drafting legislation to solve Pennsylvania’s problems, and I don’t know if other states are dealing with this particular problem,” Diamond said in an email.
Critics – including a wide variety of legal organizations and good governance groups – are calling the measure a ploy for Republicans to gain more control over the Supreme Court, where majority Democrats have recently ruled against the GOP in elections and pandemic lawsuits. .
Under Diamond’s proposal, which he has submitted to every legislative session since 2015, lawmakers would redraw judicial districts every 10 years, just as they do for congressional districts. The court maps should meet the same redistribution criteria outlined in the Pennsylvania Constitution, which requires lawmakers to sign districts roughly equal in population, dense and contiguous, as well as avoid splitting places “unless absolutely necessary.”
Despite those requirements, Pennsylvania lawmakers – who would be responsible for drawing the three appeals court cards – produced one of the most gerrymandered congressional cards in the country, which the state’s Supreme Court tossed in 2018.
Since the judicial districts would be established by law, Diamond said the maps would require the governor’s approval.
“I also see input from the courts in the negotiations to establish that plan, which would bring all three branches of government together at a time when the Commonwealth is desperately in need of such cooperation,” he said.
The way judges are selected has been a topic of debate across the country for decades, with states taking different approaches when appointing judges by merit, or by choosing them through partisan or nonpartisan races.
Twenty-eight states elect their judges to the Supreme Court through a combination of a committee that recommends candidates on merit to the governor or legislature for appointment, at least for an initial term in the bench, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Six states, including Pennsylvania, hold partisan elections, and 15 hold non-partisan elections, with one state – New Mexico – requiring judges to participate in partisan elections after being appointed by the governor.
Four states – Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Illinois – elect Supreme Court justices by district. The two states most resembling Diamond’s proposal, Illinois and Louisiana, hold partisan district elections, but the lines have remained untouched for decades.
In Illinois, three of the seven Supreme Court justices are elected from Cook County – home to the heavily democratic county seat of Chicago – and the rest are elected from districts deemed to be equal in population. But those districts haven’t been redrawn since 1963, leading to uneven populations as residents have moved.
After 10 years on the bench, Illinois Supreme Court justices are subject to uncontested retention elections in their counties for additional 10-year terms, as Diamond is proposing for Pennsylvania.
In 2004, two court candidates spent at least $ 8.9 million on their campaigns in Illinois’s southern swing district. In lawsuits, it later emerged that the campaign of the winning candidate, Lloyd Karmeier, was secretly funded in part by State Farm in an effort to overturn a billion dollar verdict against the company.
In 2020, Republicans spent millions of dollars to prevent Supreme Court Judge Thomas Kilbride, a Democrat and the changing court vote, from being detained for another 10 years. Kilbride was the first justice in the state to lose a custodial offer since the practice was first passed in 1964, according to media reports.
In Louisiana, Supreme Court justices are elected to spread the ten-year terms from seven counties that have not been redrawn since 2000. All candidates participate in the same primary, and if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two voters will advance to the general election.
Jordan Singer, professor of New England Law, said holding partisan elections in small geographic districts invites more campaign “ mischief ” than a statewide race because special interests can reach their audiences more closely and there are fewer media markets to engage. to consider.
“It really opens the door for special interests and dark money to say, ‘Look, we can get a lot of bang for our buck by pouring money into this small region of the state, letting our candidate choose, and then that candidate will hopefully advance our interests, ” he said.
That is not to say that excessive spending does not occur in statewide partisan races. The top spending in the 2004 Illinois Supreme Court race was the 2015 Pennsylvania contest, where candidates vying for three seats together spend $ 15.9 million, according to the Brennan Center.
Chris Bonneau, a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh, said candidates win with larger margins in judicial districts, and that there are fewer contested races because the districts are more politically homogeneous.
Redfield said district elections would likely produce few candidates who reflect the partisan or ideological “middle,” and more who win by running to the far left or right of their base, especially if the districts are not competitive.
He said that introducing ideological benefits, such as redistribution, into judicial elections leads people to see judges as partisan actors obliged to constituencies, rather than as impartial judges impervious to outside influence.
“Redistrictions are becoming a way to ensure that the districts do not unfairly represent people’s interests, implicitly assuming that judges represent people, not the law and the constitution,” he said.
The Pennsylvania Constitution requires amendments to be passed twice in consecutive sessions in the legislature before being placed on the ballot. After being approved by the General Assembly last year, Diamond’s move was narrowly passed by a House committee earlier this month, with two Republicans sided with the Democrats by voting against.
If both houses pass the measure before February 17, the amendment to the May 18 primaries vote would appear. The next step is a House floor vote, although Diamond said on Tuesday he does not know when the leadership plans to vote on the measure. A spokesman for House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Center County, did not respond to a request for comment.
Jane Cutler Greenspan, a retired Democratic Supreme Court Judge from Philadelphia appointed by Governor Ed Rendell, said she was thinking about rural counties that did not seem like her home base when she made decisions that affected the entire state.
Greenspan, who opposes Diamond’s constitutional change, said this wouldn’t necessarily be the case if she had been elected by a district.
“If only I were obliged to voters in Philadelphia, I would vote about there,” she said. “You will have judges who don’t consider other districts.”
100% ESSENTIAL: Spotlight PA relies on funding of foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountable journalism that gets results. Join today at spotlightpa.org/ donate.
Categories:
News | Pennsylvania | Political Elections | Top stories