Merit Selection Proponents Show Their Slippery Hand
May 22, 2008
Shira Goodman has a revealing post over at the JudgesonMerit.org blog about the fight to abolish democratic election of judges in Pennsylvania and let a lawyer-dominated committee pick judges behind closed doors.
Goodman leads off by praising the skill, experience and fairness of many Pennsylvania appellate judges. But, Goodman proclaims, “they reached the bench despite the electoral process, not because of it. We’d get a lot more good judges under Merit Selection, which is designed to bring such people to the bench.”
This conclusion is based on the belief that Goodman knows a good judge and the people do not. And of course, Goodman cannot produce a single argument that even suggests - let alone proves - that so-called “merit selection” produces superior judges. But the arrogance to believe that ordinary citizens are somehow inferior in their judgment to a room full of lawyers is truly breathtaking.
Goodman combines this arrogance with a deeply flawed understanding of representative government. She claims “Elections are the best way to select presidents, governors, mayors, senators, and representatives - public officials who represent specific constituencies and advocate for identified policies.” This is nonsense. Unless I’m mistaken, there’s no Senator from the Pennsylvania Bar Association in Harrisburg, no Representative from the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Governor Rendell serves at the pleasure of the people, not the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce.
Our presidents, governors, mayors, senators and representatives are not elected to represent “specific constituencies” - they are elected to represent all the people, including citizens who didn’t vote for them. The idea that citizens are competent enough to elect lawmakers who write laws and executives who enforce laws, but too ignorant to elect judges who decide cases under the law is elitist and undemocratic.
Pass the brie and chardonnay please.
Elites have always been agitated by the fact that their influence over government is not commensurate with their inflated sense of self-importance. Let them eat cake.
In the end, “merit selection” is not about judicial independence or finding superior judges; it’s about denying citizens a crucial right under representative government and increasing the power of a small handful of legal elites.
When lawyers choose…the people lose.
Posted by Dan Pero in the categories: Judicial Elections, Pennsylvania, State Battlegrounds
3 Responses to “Merit Selection Proponents Show Their Slippery Hand”
Based on my experience with both judges and lawyers as a retired career federal prison officer, 2 time veteran of malicious, frivolous lawsuits and as a maverick whistle blower who has —, and who will will continue to go to bat for the victims of unscrupulous, sue the truth into paralyzed silence” shyster attorneys –, I have learned one infuriating and inescapable truth. Whether we let the “lawyers select and elect the judges” –, or the lesser of the two evils -, let the public select and elect them -, we are still stuck with an “elite profession” which “owns, operates and controls their very own ” 50 state “fox guarding the chicken house attorney “discipline” bureaucracies. And THAT is where most of the “public blindfolding, accountability avoidance insurance” for lawyers and judges is vested.
Empowering the non attorney electorate to select and elect judges is far superior and more palatable than letting their law degree’ d cronies control the process. But this process too is doomed to very limited success in reining in, hobbling and muzzling this secretive, “self policed beast” clique of judges and lawyers that they refer to as “our civil and criminal justice system”. The only effective way to clean up the civil and criminal “justice” system is to clean up the profession which “owns and operates both”. The only way to accomplish that -, is via a state by state dismantling of all 50 state “attorney owned and operated attorney “discipline bureaucracies via removing all attorneys and judges, restructuring those bureaucracies and replacing the lawyers and judges with a 2/3 majority of qualified non attorney members of the electorate with full and unfettered interrogative and disciplinary authority.
And those attorney “discipline” bureaucracies must enjoy all of the “see all, hear all and tell all whistle blowing technology” and zeal of the credit bureaus who “spotlight all of our mistakes for the world to see”. We will continue to fail to clean up the system as long as we permit our adversaries to force us to “play the game by their rules and play the game on their on their court where they ARE both the scorekeeper and referee”.
The glaring spotlight of massive villain exposing publicity drives business from the doors of Huckster Shaft and Fraud attorneys, lawyers running for elected office –, and sabotages “judge nominating propaganda”. That’s how we can “beat the lawyers and judges at their own game –, on OUR court by OUR rules” and clean up politics as an added benefit! And that is the only strategy which has any hope of cleaning up this corrupt empire. Anything less is a frustrating, time consuming and costly waste of time.
I rest my case,
Ivan L. Fail
Sparta, Missouri
e-mail ilf@centurytel.net
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