Doubling Down On A Losing Hand
May 24, 2008
Poor Shira Goodman - part of the gang over at Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts that wants to abolish the constitutional right of Pennsylvania citizens to choose that state’s judges and let a committee of lawyers meet in secret to decide who sits on the bench. She’s got a losing hand but she just keeps doubling down.
In a post today in response to my post yesterday, Goodman rants that it’s really her group that wants to protect the right to vote. Why? Because they want to let Pennsylvania citizens decide for themselves whether to end judicial elections.
Suppose Goodman and her group succeeded in persuading 50% + 1 of Pennsylvanians to do away with judicial elections. So what? In our democracy, Voter A and Voter B cannot conspire to take away the rights of Voter C.
Goodman wants us all to defer to what she calls the “democratic process” - but the problem is that democracy means quite a bit more than simply “the majority rules.” In fact, one of the most important duties of government is protecting the constitutional rights of the minority against the wishes of the majority.
Hedge fund billionaire George Soros is spending a fortune funding groups like Pennsylvanians for Modern Court to try to abolish judicial elections. Let’s hope for his sake he’s getting more for his money than losing arguments like the one Goodman is pushing.