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PA Supreme Court Justice: Judicial Elections Don’t Affect Court

November 25, 2009

Kudos to Justice Debra Todd of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for her opinion piece that appeared this week in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.    As AmericanCourthouse readers know, there has been a multi-decade effort to eliminate democratic judicial elections in Pennsylvania, led chiefly by Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts.  PMC and others claim judicial elections politicize the courts - but Justice Todd, elected to the PA Supreme Court in 2007 as a Democrat, is having none of it…

“…while a candidate running for an opening on the Supreme Court does so as a Republican or a Democrat, a justice is not beholden to any party and the assertion of political control of the court is simply incongruous…[A] judge is elected to interpret and apply the law of the commonwealth in accordance with the Pennsylvania and United States constitutions. While the casual observer may believe that because we elect judges in our commonwealth politics control our judiciary, nothing could be further from the truth. Just as Lady Justice does not permit a voter registration card to tip her scales, it should be clearly understood that no political party controls the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.”

Thanks to JudgesonMerit for brining this to our attention. You can find their spirited, opposing view here.

Posted by Dan Pero in the categories: Judicial Elections, Pennsylvania

Comments

3 Responses to “PA Supreme Court Justice: Judicial Elections Don’t Affect Court”

  1. David Caroline on November 25th, 2009 8:59 pm

    Dan, thanks for covering this. One correction though - our “spirited” view is not an opposing one. Justice Todd merely states her belief that partisan elections do not necessarily translate to partisanship on the bench.

    Our comment on her piece did not claim that partisan politics dominate court proceedings in PA, rather that it is only natural for the public to assume that politics are relevant to judicial qualification if we select judges in partisan elections.

  2. Dan Pero on December 3rd, 2009 3:23 pm

    Thanks, David, for your comment clarifying your position. Much appreciated. I’ll post a correction

  3. Correction: Earlier PA post | American Courthouse on December 3rd, 2009 3:41 pm

    [...] week I did a short post commenting on an opinion piece by Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Debra Todd.  In it, I [...]