JudgesOnMerit Runs Up The White Flag
June 13, 2008
For weeks, the folks at JudgesOnMerit.org have labored to convince everyone that they are really the ones who support democracy because (let’s follow this closely) they want to end democratic elections for judges in Pennsylvania and let a secret, unelected, unaccountable commission decide who controls one-third of the state government.
It’s a hard case to make, I know, and in a post yesterday they finally ran up the white flag and abandoned this argument. Now, according to JudgesOnMerit, democracy is just a “buzzword” – and opponents of secret judicial selection use “pretty language” about it to try to “scare the public” into defeating their plan.
I’m flattered they think my writing is “pretty,” but I’m not really surprised that proponents of such an undemocratic system of choosing judges would dismiss democracy as a mere “buzzword.”
Democracy, it should go without saying, is not some “buzzword” – it’s the only form of government where people are trusted to govern themselves, in America’s case through elected representatives. In Federalist 39, James Madison argued forcefully that public servants, including judges, under our democracy must be chosen by “the great body of the people” (i.e. voters) and not by “an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it” (i.e. a small, elite group of lawyers). America’s new government, Madison wrote, would be:
“…a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people…It is essential (Madison’s emphasis) to such a government, that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it … It is sufficient (Madison’s emphasis) for such a government, that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people…Even judges [under the Constitution] with all other officers of the Union, will, as in the several States, be the choice, though a remote choice, of the people themselves.”
But wait, JudgesOnMerit responds, the people of Pennsylvania themselves will have to vote for this change in the judicial selection process, through a referendum. So under their plan, democracy would be reduced to “one person, one vote, one time” – a far cry from the democracy Madison and the Founders envisioned.
In the United States, there is a presumption that the people ought to govern themselves. No one at JudgesOnMerit has yet been able to demonstrate why we are unable to govern ourselves when it comes to our judiciary.
Posted by Dan Pero in the categories: Judicial Elections, Pennsylvania, State Battlegrounds
4 Responses to “JudgesOnMerit Runs Up The White Flag”
This classic example of the lawyer’s high handed hypocrisy,larcenous greed, gutter ethics and turf protecting, power grabbing, sabotage of the majority electorate’s Constitutional right to govern ourselves –, which includes electing judges by a majority vote of the electorate -, is typical “lawyer”. Their broad based, far reaching and underhanded “blind side attack” on the rights of the electorate and the fraudulent “diversionary dishonesty” that they are employing –, as usual –, to accomplish this “vote voiding goal” is fraudulent, tyrannical and typical of the legal profession as well as the judiciary in general.
The lawyers –, and their black robed bureaucrat colleagues have only themselves to blame for our mistrust and contempt for them..They consistently “hijack Constitutional law” and use it as both a self appropriated –, and “self rewarding” facilitator and enforcer of “hidden hook” fine print fleecing and fraud on behalf of well heeled predator creditors and other white collar sneak thieves” —-, and their “character assassin” credit bureau enforcers. But there is more -, much more!
The Devil himself can walk into an attorney’s office. fork over a legal retainer and/or a promise of a “percent of the take” and sue God Almighty for the Universe. And if God didn’t “outrank even the lawyers” by having the “Final Word” -, the lawyers would “bankrupt God in just the nitpicking, stonewalling, serial extension, case prolonging, legal fee generating, ceremonial charade that they call the “pre trial discovery process”. The societal wide shakedown of “fine print fleeced consumers,” honest merchants and business owners, duly designated heirs to estates–, overworked and underpaid “tired truckers” –, and an army of other victims of malicious lawsuits has “the lawyer’s fingerprints and DNA all over it”. To trust this “pack of jackals” to choose their own “orchestra conductors to “conduct their performance’s” is sheer insanity -, and “societal suicide”..
Ivan L. Fail (A defendant in ongoing malicous, frivolous lawsuit 2006 CV-25 in Wilson County Kansas)
Sparta, Missouri
[...] faced with opponents who fail to recognize the inconsistencies in their own positions. In a recent post attacking Merit Selection, Dan Pero of American Courthouse demonstrates that he really prefers a [...]
Isn’t Madison referring to the federal judiciary? They are all appointed and then confirmed by the Senate. There’s no popular vote at all. In merit selection systems, the judges stand for retention election every certain number of years. Madison never envisioned the public voting on federal judges. Why are you bringing him up to support your point?
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